Lena Doll.... Tommy Doll... Ashes... Pain

I sit here looking at the beautiful handmade doll that my friend, Lena, from Sweden made for me when I was deathly ill in 1999.  She sent it to me and I've treasured it with my heart.... she put 'herself' in it because....... it resembles her some.  It is like when I draw... there's a girl I always draw 'that's me'...... and everyone always says 'that's you!'  :))))  Lena Doll has on a red hat and dress with white blouse.. she is a cloth doll and she holds a red rose.  Lena Doll survived a housefire just as my Tommy Doll did.  I'm so thankful I have both of them.... they comforted me when I was deathly ill and they comfort me now.... Lena is gone now and Tommy is gone now.  I have a part of them that they each sent to me with their love.  I treasure them and both... are in a special place.... my Art Room.  :)))))

Anyway.... I call this special doll my Lena Doll and she sits next to my Tommy Doll (that my son, Tommy, got for me when in Germany to send to me at that same time).  Lena Doll and Tommy Doll.
Tommy Doll is a porcelain doll with an 'old-time' jacket and dress with lace (hunter green with tiny flowers) and matching hat and black shoes.. she has long curly hair... she's beautiful.  She also, survived a housefire.  I'm so thankful to have my Tommy Doll, the doll my son chose just for me and sent it from far away. 

My Lena Doll sits holding the photo ... the last photo taken of Tommy on May 29, 2010 just maybe an hour before he collapsed playing on the sand at Myrtle Beach with Taban, his precious little son.  Tommy Doll sits holding a framed poem 'Loving Hug For Mother' that Tommy gave me years ago.  Both dolls sit on top of the Rose Chest that I have my mother's ashes in.........beside the Oriental Chest my brother's ashes are in... and beside that is where Jimmy wanted his ashes to be....all in my artroom where there's sunshine, happiness and ... love.  My Lena Doll has that soft, shy smile that Lena had in life.... and she even holds her head sort of like Lena in life.  I just looked at her... and at Tommy Doll.... they both have their faces turned toward each other as if in conversation...  both are smiling softly.  I smile also, thinking of them both.  My systervan and my son.............. 

My Tommy Chest is close by.... it has things in it that were Tommy's that Taban will have one day.  It also, has photos of him taken at the funeral home..... that to this day... I can't bear to look at.  I've tried... the pain is just so great that I'm not strong enough to bear.  I really try to be strong enough opening that box they are in ever so often testing my strength.  I don't know how long it will be to get that kind of strength.  I feel shaky inside.........  when I look at the photos of my only child, my baby.. my son.....my eyes go to a place on him that causes even deeper pain.  I discovered it as I rubbed his head and my fingers touched it and traced it......... it's in my mind and I can't get it out... it was the place on his head where the autopsy was done... the scar that was there and stitched up.  This is something that is in my mind and as a mother..... I was bound to have found it.  A mother always touches her child's head when they aren't feeling well and she always rubs it to make them feel better.
Time to close the door on this memory.... for now....I have to be alittle stronger to think farther... I could become 'lost' in a maze of sadness and grief and tears could just drown me.  I don't know how to swim...........I am feeling that shaky feeling.

Jimmy's ashes are still the way they were when the man gave them to me... sealed inside a box and sitting in a tasteful hunter green bag..... I haven't seen a chest yet, that is 'Jimmy'.  His chest would be something with the flavor of old history and nautical.......  He is my cousin who was my substitute- brother when my own little brother and I were separated for many years from a home that fell apart. 
Jimmy was also, taken to Grandma Alma and George's home like I was.  He also, suffered almost everything I did.  Jimmy always managed in the months before his death to come to the subject of me keeping his ashes until I promised I would..... he kept saying he wanted to be beside Earlene and Ricky... my mother and my brother.  He would laugh talking about how he and my mother would match wits when he was younger (it really was a sight ..and sound... to behold!) and he said if possible he would do that again in the 'afterlife'.  He loved Ricky, who was his cousin ... of course, my mother was his aunt.

I remember once Angie saying I was caretaker of the ashes..... I am caretaker of these special people's ashes... they have been so important in my life.  I don't have Tommy's ashes, Angie has Tommy's ashes and Taban will have them one day.. his father's ashes.  Skip and I do have tiny
'urns' in the shape of a heart (mine) and the shape of a teardrop (Skip)... they are gold and we haven't gotten gold necklaces for them yet.  They hold a tiny bit of Tommy's ashes.  Thank-you, Angie.  I had forgotten this as I have so many things... Tommy's ashes will be taken to Stone Mountain where he always said he wanted them to be scattered..... one day.  I know that has to be... that was one of his wishes 'should something happen to him'................................................................................................

I sit here in my desk chair in front of my computer... thinking I would have never dreamed in my young life that I'd be writing these things when older.  The most darkest and worse time in my entire life... the most terrible color in my life ... is the lost of my only child.  No one could mix a worse color... no one.  If I make myself smile.... and 'see' Tommy..... I see a golden light... a son with golden blonde hair and laughing blue-green eyes ( 'hazel eyes like yours, Mama'... he used to say that) and I see a soft blur of........ could it be feathers?  All is in soft, happy, sparkling colors....................................I do love these colors and am comforted by them.  I love you, Tommy.  Your mother loves you and sends her love to heaven to you.