Tears of a Clown

The saddest words I ever heard were, "Mama, It used to be so easy to be me..." It still breaks my heart to remember how you looked when you said them. I've tried to start this blog so many times to honor you Kenna, but I didn't know where to begin. Today I remembered those words with an ache in my heart and realized there is no beginning or ending with you. So I am just going to start. I want to share the memories that tell your story and celebrate how easy it was to be you. And how hard it became. I always wished on your star every night for things to be easier for you, now I just pray for your peace. A good friend asked me recently if I believed you were at peace and I realized I hadn't thought of it in those terms. But because you told us in your letters that that is what you wanted, I have to believe you achieved what you needed.
Today "Tears of a Clown" was playing on the Mama Mix #1 cd you made for me and reminded me of my "true love" in high school. I wrote "I luv Ron" everywhere, on the dryer, in the steam on the mirror, on the furniture, everywhere I could. After a period of time, Mom said if she saw it one more time, I would be grounded. On the walk to the school bus that morning, a soft snow had fallen and there was a large windshield on a car near the bus stop. Of course, I luv Ron just fit on that perfect canvas as I traced it with my gloved hand. How was I to know Mom would walk to the store that day? Guess who was grounded when we got home? Then I remembered when you were four and no one in the neighborhood could play one day because they were all grounded. Hard to believe but up until then, you had never been "grounded" and you insisted that I ground you like all of your friends. So I sent you to your room and said you were grounded. About an hour later, you came out and listed all the reasons grounding was "quite a waste of my time and please don't ever do that again!"
Later that year of the I luv Ron writings, he was killed in a head on collision with three of his best friends. No one called it drunk driving then and people actually felt bad for the woman who hit them because "she would have to live with it forever". How things change. I chose the name for Kameron to honor Ron in some small measure and when I told his mother, she cried. I was a young mother but I remember thinking, "When will she ever stop crying, when will it stop hurting?" Now I know that answer...never. I used to visit his grave and the last time when I went with you, his mother and father had been laid to rest beside him. And I have to believe they are together, at peace at last, because you told me they were.