Intensity

The intensity of this weekend has caught me off guard.

Some things are easy because we should have done them years ago, like cleaning out the piles of junk in Emmett's studio that he never used.  Where, incidentally, I found every single clipboard in the house that Emmett had at one point squirreled away someplace safe, and where we haven't been able to find them for years.

But other things, like cleaning out Emmett's closet, are not so easy because there is a note of finality, a reminder that he's not just on the road again.  As I sorted through Emmett's things (and I bet you'd have never guessed that he had more clothes and shoes than I did), I also sorted through memories and emotions.  I rearranged my clothes, but it felt like I was reorienting my life, a feeling I wasn't prepared for because I felt like I was turning towards emptiness (as in a completely unknown future, not as in a lack of Jesus).

I also spent some time listening to a song a friend wrote about Emmett (Check out his CD here: the last track is the one to which I'm referring, but the whole disk is great), and though it's a good song, well a very good song actually, it's also a hard song because, unintentionally, I think it captured Emmett's mood very well.  Unlike many sparkly songs about dying, it poignantly captures the tension caused by a long illness.

And finally, last night, as I was working in the kitchen on some Team Emmett things, I heard Quinn sobbing from his bed.  I don't think I've ever seen him cry so hard that for several long minutes he couldn't even tell me what he was crying about.  He finally choked out that he was sad about daddy.  He had gotten out some books written by another friend about love and eternity (check those out here), to look at in bed, and those books always remind him of his daddy.  He wanted me to read them to him over and over, which I could barely do.

This weekend has been full of Emmett, even down to the weather.  Fall will always make me think of Emmett and intensify his absence.