Let's Dance

Wyatt, a birthday card, and the ways we still meet

When Wyatt died at seventeen, I didn’t stop being his mom. I have said before that the desire to parent him didn’t stop, and the desire to be loved by him didn’t either.

Grief has a way of changing how you see the world. It doesn’t just live in the background, making a small appearance now and again. It moves through everything. Major holidays come and go, Mother’s Day, birthdays, ordinary days that are not really ordinary at all, and they still carry the weight of who is not physically present.

Those special days like Mother’s Day and birthdays are when the people who love you celebrate you. When you lose a child, part of those days change. The cards, the hugs, the small gestures that would have come from that child are no longer there. It’s hard, and I think some people sit in that void for a long time. I have sat there too. I still do at times, but I have also learned to make something else out of those days. To create small moments that belong just to Wyatt and me.

There is this quiet desire I still carry, to know what he would have said, how he would have shown up in those moments. It can sound really weird when said out loud. I understand that. Almost, like I am focusing on myself and clinging to a false reality, but it is not really about that. It is about a missing piece of my heart, and I have learned to let it be what it is without apologizing for it or feeling the pressure from society to move on.

So, during those personal celebrations, sometimes I buy my own card from Wyatt.

Even now, it still feels a little hard to explain to you, but I will be standing in a store looking through cards around Mother’s Day or my birthday, and I will find one that feels like it is speaking directly to me. It is usually something unexpected. A llama. Something playful. Something that stops me. And in that moment, it is like hearing Wyatt say, “Mom, this is me. I’m here. I’m celebrating you. I love you.” Even though his body is not here on this earth, I still feel his presence in those small exchanges. So I buy the cards, and I keep them.

Just last month, Tyson and I were in Seaside, one of the places we have always loved as a family. We went into Sundog Books, one of those small, independent bookstores full of books from floor to ceiling. I was browsing their card section up front because my 50th birthday was just a few days away, and there it was, a card with a llama that said, “Let’s dance.”

Wyatt and I have photos of us dancing together. Those images are something I love to revisit when I miss him terribly. One memory in particular stays with me. We were at my brother’s house for his fiftieth birthday. Music was playing, country, rap, Whitney Houston, every genre you could imagine, and Wyatt was in the pool. We were all singing and having the best time. A country song started to play. I did not even have my swimsuit on, but I just jumped in fully clothed and started two-stepping with my boy. It is not something I would normally do. In fact, most people don’t do it, but in that moment, I did. And I am so glad I did. I let my guard down and gave in to being present and playful.

We danced, laughed, and had the best time.

So when I saw that llama card, “Let’s dance,” I understood it in my own way. It felt like a message straight from heaven. Like a reminder that even now, especially now, I am still allowed to step into those moments and dance!

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