That's how long you've been gone.
What an empty, useless, lonely year it has been.
Empty.
Useless.
Lonely.
Soon, I'll have most of the dreadful and dreaded annual firsts behind me -- and I don't want them behind me. I want them ahead of me still. I know that isn't going to happen -- if I haven't wakened to a 'before' reality in nine months, I'm kind of getting the idea that it will never happen.
Oh, but I wish.
I wish.
The biggest first is looming before me. Your birthday. I don't wanna have your birthdate without you. That's so "not right" that I can't express it.
Hailey's birthday, too. It will be strange without you to share it with. And then yours. And, of course, your family, with its cluster of August birthdays. I know they will think of you, too, and that a bit of them will feel the loss of not knowing you're there -- of knowing you're not there -- on the day that was always yours.
I dread the day. I know it will hit me hard. The week of the 10th through the 16th of every month is so hard, and those are (usually) ordinary days. Should I work and sleep and pass the emptiness that way? Should I take the day off and wallow in grief and aloneness?
But that would make your day about me, and I don't want that. Somehow I will make it your day, because it is.
It always will be, for me.
What an empty, useless, lonely year it has been.
Empty.
Useless.
Lonely.
Soon, I'll have most of the dreadful and dreaded annual firsts behind me -- and I don't want them behind me. I want them ahead of me still. I know that isn't going to happen -- if I haven't wakened to a 'before' reality in nine months, I'm kind of getting the idea that it will never happen.
Oh, but I wish.
I wish.
The biggest first is looming before me. Your birthday. I don't wanna have your birthdate without you. That's so "not right" that I can't express it.
Hailey's birthday, too. It will be strange without you to share it with. And then yours. And, of course, your family, with its cluster of August birthdays. I know they will think of you, too, and that a bit of them will feel the loss of not knowing you're there -- of knowing you're not there -- on the day that was always yours.
I dread the day. I know it will hit me hard. The week of the 10th through the 16th of every month is so hard, and those are (usually) ordinary days. Should I work and sleep and pass the emptiness that way? Should I take the day off and wallow in grief and aloneness?
But that would make your day about me, and I don't want that. Somehow I will make it your day, because it is.
It always will be, for me.
Make it his day, anyway. Have whatever you usually have, just it is now his first (etc.) birthday in heaven (or however you declare it), but still celebrate it with YOUR - meaning yours and his - family, as you always did. My heart feels for you - you are right, the biggest days are yet to come.
ReplyDelete