I need to write more about my experience last night
Tuesday, Mar. 16, 2004 at 5:10 P.M.
As i mentioned yesterday I went and had a visit with Steven's mom, Janet. This was very different from other visits i have had with her over the years. Since Steven's disappearance I have always made a point to stop in and see her every time I'm home. But i never called ahead, never gave her time to schedule time for me, because I really didn't want to spend the time. I didn't know what to say. I would stop and give a perfunctory update, and dash off on my way, careful to stay away from the important stuff, avoiding any topic of substance.
This time I knew it would be different. I wrote ahead, told her when I'd be coming, and asked if we could visit (as well as asking her for my letters back). I have never asked her for anything of Steven's, or even spoken about him with her since he has been gone. How could i do that without increasing her pain? And mine? How do you look someone in the eye and say that you are very sorry for their loss, and your own, because you always expected she would be your mother-in-law?
We chatted for a long time before either of us brought Steven up. We went through the typical family updates, who is where, and what their plans are. We did have some silences, where we were not looking at each other, not quite knowing what to say. So she decided to make tea. Once we sat down with out mugs that eased the silence a bit, but i did not know how to being up the topic of my letters. I had already written her about it, and did not want to just blurt out "Can i have my letters now?" Right up until she handed me the letters I did not know if she would be willing to give them to me. Actually, for that matter, I did not know if Steven had even kept my letters. Just because I had kept his did not mean he would have kept mine around over the years. I mean that's not really a guy kind of thing to do is it?
So as we sat down at the table with our tea she pulled out they shoe box that was overflowing. She had gone through his things in order to find all the letters she could for me. She seemed almost embarassed that she had gone through the letters. But did she think I would not expect her to look through them? I mean, it's not like she sat down and read them all, and it would have been totally fin if she had, but she flipped through looking for items she might want to hold on to. She ended up with two pictures, one of me, and one of him, that she asked if she could keep, which i had no objection to. I could not believe how many letters there were! .
After I got home I started looking through them and i realized that I really poured my soul out to him over the years. He is probably the only person that has known so much about me.
In the box there was also a small package addressed to me. It had been found in his apartment after he was gone, and his mother had held on to it for all of these years. Inside the brown paper wrapping there was an old paperback copy of a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories and poems.
It is so strange to have these things back in my possession. The thought that i will be able to go back, and remember how i felt and what i though, and that it is all documented by my own hand. I wrote more in letters than i ever did in a diary or journal.
In some ways i feel relieved, like i have opened a door between Janet and myself, and we may be able to talk more, and hopefully gain something that we still feel is missing. I think this will be a good thing. Good for me to go through my letters that contain my feelings from all those years ago and put them in perspective, good for her because maybe i will be able to shed a little light on this son that she perhaps didn't really know, but misses terribly. I think that is something that will always hold us together somewhat.
bEfOrE ~ AftEr
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