Today. January 26. This is not a day to celebrate. It isn't an "anniversary." It is the day my earth stood still and everything that made sense and was right, good, normal got turned on its head. Today is the day you died. Six. Years. Ago.
How can it be?
We have somehow survived in the massive wake left by your death. Cobbled together a new existence that includes your little brother and our scarred, re-shaped hearts that have found joy and hope again. Time does not heal the grief and wounds. Time simply gives us the grace to learn how to compartmentalize, cope, manage the grief.
Even though it's been six years, I can remember every moment of this day in 2011 in vivid, stark, raw detail. I can't say the same for the subsequent days and weeks - those, quite frankly, are a blurred jumble of snapshots in my head. But this day. This day is tough. From the moment I saw your sobbing Dadda holding your lifeless body while I was in the shower, my hair full of soapy suds, to the paramedics in our bedroom, to the frantic ambulance ride in rush hour traffic when I couldn't stop praying for your to somehow live, to the calm, focused doctors in the ER, to the kind doctor who explained that after an hour there simply was no hope, to the painfully long phone call with the organ donation service, to the horrific interview with the police, to the hospital room filled with our stunned extended family, to the garbled phone call to my boss, to the endless walk out of the hospital to our car with its empty car seat, to the phone calls we made to our closest friends, until we finally drove home to our house. Your home. An empty home. The master bedroom floor still littered with tubes and paper from the paramedics. Your room and crib stripped of bedding and your beloved froggy by the police. And the silence.
Until the calvary arrived.
Friends and family arrived on our doorstop with alcohol, food, flowers and love. Our house was filled with hugs and conversation about you. Your beautiful laughter and spirit.
That night we had to face the empty house again, and had to decide if we were going to try to survive your death. Honestly, I had to decide to survive. I had to commit to Dadda that I would survive. And that was the most I could promise at that moment. It wasn't until many months later that I could make the conscious decision to actually live, love, and thrive again to honor you.
Every day I wake up and commit my day to you and your spirit. You, Peanut, are my North Star.
I love you with every fiber of my being, and that love grows every day, even though you aren't physically on this earth with us. How much love is that, you might ask? To the moon - and back, silly boy!
- Momma
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| This might be my all-time favorite picture of you. |
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| To honor your memory, this year Momma purchased this froggy paperweight, and a dome paperweight of the universe where I see you every day. |
