"It was Real to me..." - Black Widow

I have four adopted children. Two sets of biological siblings. Each with their own unique trauma history all coagulating into this trans-racial, hodge-podge of a family. Only, my oldest has decided that he wants a break from this complex concoction. On April 1, he moved out and rarely speaks to us. We have no idea where he's actually living. And I'm stuck trying to hold the rest of the pieces together.

I overheard my youngest daughter saying, "I used to have another brother..." I didn't interrupt her conversation with her friend. It's too complicated to understand myself, let alone two seven year olds. A used-to brother. When does someone stop being someone's brother? Someone's son? Did the lack of blood and genes allow a more permanent division than one fashioned in flesh and bone? And I wonder, when a mother's children dies - is she still a mother? When a son abandons his family, is he still a son? A brother?

And somehow in his absence, we are trying to move forward, be less consumed with worry and carry on. Taking the other children to yearly physicals and dentist appointments, birthday parties and family gatherings. Vacations and trips to the beach. All with this shadow of a son who is always here and not here. Trying to carry on as normal - even though nothing is normal anymore, knowing it never really was.

I read a poem once where grief was explained like a missing tooth and your tongue keeps sliding over the hole. And this is what his absence is like. An ever present gap, I can't help my constant awareness. But life moves forward, school starts, bills are due, months pass. So I push forward, this ever present gap in our family, trying not to cling too tightly to the rest of them, praying that none follow in his footsteps.

(Family photo from 2015)