Eerie

At a family party earlier today, my aunt whipped out a photo that she wanted me to see. She said she had found it the day before in some old boxes and considered it an early Mother's Day gift. It was a photo of her son who had been deceased since before I was born. Our family rarely speaks of the death of my cousin because it was so tragic. He was only two years old and the circumstances surrounding his death were so sad that, out of respect to my family, I won't talk about them. You can imagine, then, why I was so surprised that she would hand me a photo of him. Particularly because I had never seen a photograph of him before.
I looked at the old photo that was taken sometime in the late seventies and nearly lost my balance. My breath was literally taken away. There in that old, faded photo was my son Kevin's face. Seriously, the likeness was unmistakable. The eyes, the hair, the same mischevious smile, if Kevin were blond, I would swear it was him in the photo.
It shook me up, to say the least. I have been weirded out by it all day. I can't get the photo out of my head. If we were living in some Hollywood drama, I would think this was some eerie omen or devastating foreshadow of things to come. Thankfully, "I'm not a superstitious person, I'm just a little 'stitious."
Honestly, I couldn't wait to rush home to my baby boy and hold him. I didn't let him out of my sight all day. I told my dad what had happened, and he told me that he saw the resemblance before but didn't want to say anything. I think sometimes we are given these wake-up calls so we remember how wonderful our lives really are.
On this day, Mother's Day, hug your kids a little tighter, cherish their presence a little more, be a bit more patient, and tell them how much you love them. It's because of them that you are a mother, and you never know how quickly they can be taken from you.