Why the Bubble burst...part 1

I'd like to say that I had this wise epiphany  of the heavens opening, and the angels descending upon me..and I realized that not everything is what it seems on the surface. But...(now keep in mind I am a slow learner) it took the most catastrophic event in the world to start my journey and burst the bubble, so to speak.

My son died.

Now, please know that in no way, shape or form, do I believe that God choose to take Reid up to heaven to play his Tuba and do back flips among the clouds so I would become a wiser person. In fact, when I think of all the reasons that Reid could have died, and try to rationalize why such a thing would happen, my small mind just can not wrap my mind around it. It just can't. Now I know I hear reasons.

1. God only gives you what you can handle. (This seems quite unfair, because if I was weak, Reid wouldn't have died?)
2. Reid has done what he needed to do on this earth. (Ok, he made a lot of people laugh, and he absolutely made my world bright and kept me going when everything around me was falling apart) but I find it hard to believe that he didn't have a lot to add to this world. But I do keep in mind I am not God, and I don't know the reasons. I do know that he is a lot smarter than I could ever be.
3. God needed him up there in heaven. (Now this I believe. I look at the colors of the New Mexico sunset, which tend to be orange,and beautiful...and I know that Reid is helping him rewire things. He is probably blowing a HUGE tuba at all the angels and scattering them throughout heaven..which I know most give God a chuckle. And now he can really do back flips. That's another story.)

I am always also fond of the following statement: "I couldn't do this, I don't know how you do it." Now of course you can do it. You HAVE to. You don't have any choice, really. 

When you are planning a life, and envisioning what you think your life will be like, most people do see children in their lives. But the thing you do not see is having a child that you bore, laughed with, adored, die before you do. It's not not natural and not in the natural order of the world. So when Reid died in his sleep, in his bed, and I found him on that early May morning, I didn't even realize that he died at first. I can't tell you what I thought was wrong..but that was really not in my thoughts. And then after to call his dad to tell him he was gone, to hear Whitney's screams as she came home to find ambulances, fire trucks, policemen, and the mayor of Rio Rancho(still wondering why he was there), and then go to the police station to give statements..(because 15 year olds just don't die normally in their sleep) it did begin to sink in that Reid and I were not going on that trip to Arkansas, and my plans for the week were..well, not going the way I planned. I remember sitting in a friend's house and watching the clock, and thinking.."I'm supposed to be in Aramillo...I'm supposed to be in Oklahoma..'.

When you THINK that you are control of your life, and that there is danger in your bubble bursting, you think really strange things.  I remember thinking that if we could just get through the funeral, things would be better. Silly me. Of course you know if you have lost anyone, the easy part is the funeral. The hard part is the after part..which evolves as it goes. (But that's another story for another time.)