DAVIN R. GARCIA

365 days ago, fifty close family members and friends gathered on a rainy morning in Poughkeepsie, New York, during a pre-vaccinated pandemic, to pay tribute to my beautiful boy, Davin Richard Garcia. 8,760 hours ago, my tears washed over a white granite box, containing the fragments of a mother’s, and father’s, love and dreams for a beautiful life.

In moments where I feel I’m not strong, and when I feel alone and sad, and that no one gets it, I still wake up and I think it’s impossible that this is happening. I’ve become trapped, again, in a version of my life I hadn’t anticipated. And I know, that the only ones who can understand this, are those who are in their own version of darkness. What I’ve lost and what I continue to live through are two opposing things that exist simultaneously for me. There’s no returning to a previous version of myself, and I am expected to create a new one. I can’t claim deftness in how to accomplish this, but what I have learned is that when your architecture collapses in on you, you have to learn to live along the fault lines.

I’m always asking, what is the lesson? It will take the span of my lifetime to know this. Over the past twenty years of surviving with my sons, the unceasing life interruption of September 11th, 2001, I’ve felt conflicted over the need to be fully present for the boys, and the desire to create a life worth living for myself. What I do know is that for me, the survival and re-imagining of a life is its own creative act. Putting language to my thoughts and feelings in conversation with a friend, in a journal, or in a post, is a way for me to get unstuck. It’s my way of catching myself before I fall, so I can step toward my reckoning with it all.

I invite all readers to visit Davin’s Legacy.com tribute and add language to the page, in Davin’s memory, here.

 DAVIN 
 My sweet, beautiful son, 
 I have loved you for twenty-eight years. 
 From the moment I heard the eager beat of your heart, 
 when I saw the shadow of the shape of you 
 in my womb, 
 I was changed. 
 You gave me a name,
  Mommy. 
 Holding my hand, 
 you walked the bewildering journey beside me, 
 through this vague
  paradox. 
 What can a mother say
 about her beloved son 
 so injured by the World, 
 that his spirit could no longer 
 endure –
 gravity? 
 I pray for your soul 
 to find peace 
 in the resolve it seeks, 
 that you curl 
 in the loving arms of your father, 
 that you feel 
 comfort in the warmth of the glow 
 emanating from the hearts
 who’ve been touched
 by your –
 brilliant light. 
 This mother 
 wants you to know that 
 your life matters. 
 Your cast is wide, 
 extending deep 
 into the mortal expanse. 
 I long for your arrival in my dreams, 
 my dear sweet boy,
 to hear your beautiful music as 
 I draw you into the fold 
 of my loving bosom and 
 cradle your tender soul. 
 I love you forever,
 Mommy. 

© 2021 Deborah Garcia, all rights reserved
Images by Deborah Garcia