A heavy subject for anyone who has lost a child, either by death or other...

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This is a heavy subject but I figured it would be healing for me and maybe others. On March 28, 2004, we were woken, suddenly, in the middle of the night, to find out that our son, who would have been 24 in 24 days, was killed, a few hours earlier, in a car crash involving a drunk driver. Never in my life did I think that I could survive such a loss. It changes your life forever, for good and for bad. The good is that it taught me to not take anything for granted, to love my family, to take care of myself, to live life well, to help others more. The bad is that everyday I never feel confident that my daughter, granddaughter or any of my other loved ones will be safe. Every time that they are out of my site, I fear the worst. The bad is that all memories of my son are never just happy ones. They start out happy but end up sad because each memory has the thought attached to it that he only had so long to live since that moment happened. When he was ten and in little league my thoughts are, "In 14 years he'd be dead". When he turned 16 and I see those photos, I think to myself, "In less than ten years he was dead."My son always wanted to work for the Post Office. He was smart and took the test. He never heard from them and wanted it so bad. Two weeks after he died, we received two letters from the Post Office with two different job offers. Oh, how that tore our hearts out. His dream would never come true. When my daughter spoke at his memorial service one thing that she said that affected me the most was, "....and when I have kids, there will be no Uncle Keith to play with them."My son loved kids, always wanted kids and I would have loved to seen him be a Dad. I will never dance at his wedding with him, I will never give him another gift, I will never see my granddaughter play with her uncle. When people ask me "how many kids do you have," I hesitate, because I fear they may ask more questions and I do not want to say, "My son died" and get into details or make them feel sorry for me. If I see something on TV about mothers and sons, it can set me off. When I go to buy cards for Mother's Day, Birthdays, Easter, etc. I hate passing the To My Son and From Your Son greeting cards. When I see things that I would have given him as a gift, it breaks my heart. At Christmas time I have a little tree. We call it "Keith's Tree". It has all of the ornaments that we bought for him and the tree topper is a miniature Rangers hockey helmet, his favorite hockey team. We put up his stocking and everyone puts a note in his stocking with a message for him, the only gift we can give him. I never read them, but one day I will. They stay there, year after year. We made a garden in the front of the house. It's "Keith's Garden". My brother had a cross made and a friend of mine gave me a Japanese Maple tree, his favorite, to put in the center. I have attached a photo of my son on his 21st birthday. I thought that he was handsome. He was a nut, could be a real pain in the butt, but he also had a big heart and we all miss him very much. If you have lost a child, even if they are not dead (missing, does not talk to you, etc.), it's all the same. It hurts. Post here, if you like, and maybe it will help you heal, too.