YOU ARE MY HERO, THE 'WIND BENEATH MY WINGS'... I TRIED SO HARD TO COME BACK THROUGH THAT DOOR

YOU ARE MY HERO, THE 'WIND BENEATH MY WINGS'... I TRIED SO HARD TO COME BACK THROUGH THAT DOOR

BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES aka GRANNY GEE

I don't know if you are following American Idol. Skip and I are watching it faithfully though... I have to admit that I am in the bedroom going from American Idol to Survivor! I love both shows. Skip watches American Idol in the living room. It's his favorite of the two.

One of the contestants sang 'Wind Beneath My Wings'... oh, how very beautiful that song was! You are my hero.... you are the wind beneath my wings.... in my mind I 'felt that song', I thought of Skip.

I thought of how Skip is my hero, the 'wind beneath my wings'. He has 'saved' me many times. He wouldn't let me ...'go'. When I was deathly ill with non-Hodgkins lymphoma... he kept telling me I was going to live, he would do and say things even to the point of making me ... angry... to 'make me get mad enough' to ... fight to live.

Many times when so many 'bad' things happened in my life, he was 'there'... he was my lifesaver. He meant for me to live. When Tommy died... that was the time in my life I honestly gave up... when I say these words I don't know if you, my readers... can 'feel' them.... I couldn't bear for my child to be gone, the fear, the panic and the wild racing of my heart, the hot tears in my eyes.... I can't take this, I just can't take this.

To keep from 'feeling this most awful of pains'... I felt I was going to have to 'not live' to 'know Tommy was gone'. I try to describe it... in no way can my words describe such pain, such grief, such wild panic of knowing that person who meant the world to me... is really gone... he can't come back.

I couldn't just tell Skip that I couldn't bear for Tommy to be gone, I couldn't think of life without my only child whom meant the world to me. This very being was a part of my body, I brought him into this world... I hurt when he hurt, I cried when he cried... I died inside... when he died. I .... was dying from life... Skip was the only person in this world who saw me, cared if I lived or died. No one was there... no one else came... no one cared. Skip was there.

Skip was there... he was the sound in my world of quiet darkness... the sound of life pulling at me to come back. I could 'feel' his love though I 'couldn't see' him.

I could feel our pups lying next to me, I could 'feel' their love for me. I stayed there in that quiet darkness... I couldn't see, I didn't want to see a world without my child in it.

Sometimes for 'moments' it would feel like somehow he 'could come back'.... he couldn't. Really... at times it seemed Tommy 'could come back'.

I know people who have experienced losing a loved one might know what I mean.... no one has ever talked to me in detail 'how it really feels to lose a loved one'... the way I'm 'talking to you' about how 'it really feels'. I've experienced 'this feeling' only twice in my life... when I had surgery to save my life, and was told in the ICU that I had cancer......... and when Tommy died.

It's a feeling that can't be described in words. This 'feeling' happened to me when I became aware what was happening to me after my surgery to save my life... when I found out that I had cancer.

The only way I can get you to 'see and feel' what I mean is..... to imagine standing 'just inside the doorway where no one can see you... if you can somehow 'go back through that door'... everything will 'be like it was 'before'...................................................

It's like 'inside' ......you 'try to pull yourself back... to where you was before'.......... so, everything will be back 'like it was'. You cry because you can't, you can't 'come back' across that line, through that door. 'Just for a moment... you think you can 'almost' ...come back'...............

Just for a tiny moment... you feel so strongly... you can come back. Just for that tiny moment it feels like Tommy could come back. Reality... reality is that 'of course we know...I know'... it can't happen.

I love that song 'Wind Beneath My Wings'... I feel such emotion when I hear it... I instantly think of my husband, my best friend, my ...... whole world.... and our Pups. I'm very thankful for them.

'Wing Beneath My Wings'.......... one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.