Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/301854
70 thought hit me: that was almost 10 years prior; what an honor to have so many adults think so highly of your child. "Did I recognize this when he was alive?'' I asked myself this question and rolled it over in my head several times. I questioned whether I knew how special my son was to other people, to so many other people. I knew how special he was to me, but I could not be sure I realized how and in what ways he touched so many lives in only 17 short years. The five hours I spent on a stool by Bryant seemed like five min- utes when I was told it was time to go. I didn't know how to walk away. I wondered who was going to stay with him. I thought he might even be scared if he was left alone. I felt like a puppet some- times being told what to do and when to do it. This lack of having any semblance of control was nothing like me at all, but I know now this was my worst, most vulnerable state ever. The mental and physical weakness that takes you over is fright- ening at the moment and even when you look back and remember. Is this the time when people lose their minds? Is this when people actually lose it, when someone goes crazy and does something they can never undo? I asked myself that many times. Still, through every bit of that seemingly never-ending traipse with the surreal and morbidly debilitating state, I always felt a very strong connection to my son; it was like he was walking with me, like he was sitting with me wherever I was led or ended up. Some- how, someway, in spite of my weakness, my mental frailties, my physical despondency and the grief that was actually paralyzing me, Bryant was giving me an inner peace. Somehow, even though I felt so much pain, numbness and seclusion because Bryant was gone, he was still there. Forget making sense of it because sense did not apply to what I was feeling. It was all so much deeper than that.