What's Really Important...

It is so easy to get caught up in the little velcro hairballs of life and forget what is truly important.

The past few days I have been all balled up in finishing the taxes so the Eldest Unnamed One could do his financial aid applications for college, hiring and firing handymen so I can get the house on the market while simultaneously preparing for, undergoing and recovering from my first rite of old age passage...my first colonoscopy...that I forgot about what was real in the world.

And then the Eldest Unnamed One came home in the middle of me trying to reinvent the financial details of the last year. I was so busy I just tossed off "Unless someone's dying, I can't talk to you."

He said, "Mom, Trae's dead."

Trae, his buddy since second grade. Trae who played soccer with my boy since forever. Trae the boy who's Mama was the toughest loving woman around, the woman voted most determined to see her son make something wonderful out of himself. Trae, the boy who had the Eldest Unnamed One and me hiding underneath my dashboard,laughing our asses off and waiting on his late arrival at the home where their dates had gathered for the pre-Prom pictures. Trae who gets hyper on sugar. Trae who chases my boy around his car after school, Trae the wingman, Trae the perpetually happy kid who defines himself as "Living life to the fullest times 10" on his myspace page. Trae who feels life is worth nothing if he can't make others laugh and feel good, too.

Trae is gone and his wingmen are in shock, walking around in disbelief, their faces frozen in the smiles left over from the second before they heard the news. And here we are, all of us mothers, crying for the boy and the mother left behind to grieve.

I can't remember...Did Dad meet Trae? I think he did. Dad died 5 months ago today. I wonder if he's been up there long enough to be on the Welcoming Committee yet? I think Dad would be a good guy to hook up with if you were young and full of life and energy- then suddenly it all ended. Dad would be good with easing the transition.

I wish he were here to help the left behinds accept the loss.