Foot Prints Of Time...

His little body remained, but his heart stood still, silent. I had felt empty lost in my thoughts trying to search for the right answers to why? I was sobbing and groaning and trying to breathe my body was weak and exhausted and my eyes were near swollen shut I just longed to be numb.

But numbness never came. I felt everything.

My husband stood in the corner crying, knowing that he needed to be strong but fearing that he couldn’t. We stayed with our baby for a while, holding him and crying. He was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Ten little fingers and ten little toes. He was exactly how I had envisioned him. Only he wasn’t alive.

I only have pictures & his footprints now, A frozen piece of time, Time cannot erase the sorrow and pain that I feel, Nor can it make things better Or force my heart to heal. Time is now a measure of the days since he’s been gone, Of getting by the best I can, And trying to be strong, The sun comes up, I wake every day, I struggle, I laugh, we’re ok I say. Time can't heal our wounds nor break all bonds or heartbreaks that we’re put through in this life. But the world rotates and life goes on.

Things will get better, I've been told many times, It’s just Never the same for those left behind. But still the world rotates and life goes on. At some point I begin to wonder if there are any tears left. But it doesn’t take long to realize there are more. Always more. It’s just that at times they come hard and fast and hot, soon after I think to myself I wonder who he would’ve been today. My heart is no longer my own, But where goes the heart, when a parents child has gone?

I look upon my wrist of my most treasured piece of body art, I stare at his perfect ten little toes, his foot prints forever a part of me as I close the door on yet another day. It's been over ten years now since he went away. It now seems like forever since I last saw his little face. Time ticks on at a startlingly pace. But his little foot prints still remain.

The use of artwork on your body conveys deep messages that you are unable to communicate to others in words, There is a story behind every tattoo that’s ever been put on skin. Maybe the story was that it was a deeply spiritual well planned out experience. Maybe it was a drunken tattoo in The spur of the moment, Maybe it’s artwork to symbolise the wearers children, maybe it’s just because it seemed to be in fashion. We are all story tellers in our own way; when we talk to our friends and family, its pretty much what we are all doing. We live our own stories, and we all do our best to make them flow in the direction we want them to good or bad... even if we know that some people think body artwork is the norm or otherwise, I personally think the three sisters of fate, past, present and future have already woven the tapestry that is our lives.

My artwork of my son’s footprints reminds me that life can change in a heartbeat, and footprints forever are left in your heart. It’s a reminder to keep on living- to keep going strong for I know that one day I will see him again.

There have been oceans of tears in the hours between losing my son and tattooing his footprints and now. People wonder how I can still stand, still walk, still laugh. But they don’t ask. You can’t ask that of a mother who has lost her child. The answer for me is sitting here in the quiet of my thoughts staring at my body art for comfort, I rest in my soul.

I do – I rest.