A window on the world

This was to be a happy picture of my kitchen window, a window I look out from often. My plants are out there, my yard is full of greenery and small trees, there are sunflower plants you can just see peeping up there near the bottom left hand side, almost as tall as my youngest daughter now (they're her sunflowers, grown from tiny seeds). But things change. Since I took this picture earlier it's transpired that my eldest son is going through a rough patch with his girlfriend, whom he loves very much. His world has revolved around her for 10 months and yet here he was, sobbing his heart out like I've never seen. Nothing sadder for a mother to see.

I know what a broken heart feels like, oh do I. Over a life time mine has felt broken many times, yet nothing I can say to him now will reassure him, nor convince him that everything will be okay, that hearts mend over time. Become stronger. This is not what he wants to hear.

Looking at this picture now I feel reflective. Remembering my long and troubled journey, how far I've come. How life has felt pointless at times. How I have considered ending my life when I felt there was nothing left inside me but a big empty hole where a life should have been. I don't feel that way now ~ I really don't. But it's unsettling to hear similar things being expressed by my son, my precious, beautiful son who was loved from the moment of inception when he was so small as to be almost invisible. Now this grown man stands before me, many many years later, crying like that tiny baby he once was.

How can I tell him that life IS worth living, that this stage of his journey has only just begun, that he will probably go through similar things many more times yet and become stronger for it each time? How can I tell him that this is important? How can I comfort him? Bear his pain for him? I can't. All I can do is be here for him, which, somehow, suddenly feels so inadequate.