Two Years

That's how long we've been without Mike.  It seems like yesterday that Emily and I were riding home from the hospital for the last time and vowing to each other that we would have a good fall and try to get on with life - because that's what he would have wanted.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen - that good fall.  We were talking about it this week, how naive we were at the time.  At that particular point, we were at peace and had been grieving for weeks.  We had (kind of) stopped second-guessing ourselves and were constantly assured by the doctors that we were doing everything we could.  We could now go home and not wake up in the middle of the night and worry that he was in pain or frightened.  We didn't have to sit beside his bed and have him look right through us - polite but not really sure what was going on.  We didn't have to wait every morning for the rounds and stand there in the room hoping some doctor - just one of them - would have something positive to say.  Just hoping for a miracle.

We thought we would just get back to our normal lives where Ryan and Emily could go back to work and the children weren't handed off to friends and schedules juggled for them.  But it didn't happen - immediately.  Emily and I grieved in different ways on different days, and sometimes we weren't enough for each other.  I couldn't be at their house for some reason.  It just made me too sad.  Emily couldn't come to the apartment because it made her too sad.  There were very few subjects we could discuss without one of us falling apart.

I'm not sure when we were able to go on with things.  Probably having Graysen to take to school and Katherine to care for.  Their lives were just beginning, and while we were devastated that PopPop wouldn't get to see them grow up, they did keep us busy and distracted.   Graysen mentions him often but remembers him only through pictures and things that have been repeated over and over, and Katherine talks about him just because Graysen does and recognizes his picture, but she was too young to remember him.

I was walking this morning along the same streets and paths that we used to walk here, and it was unbearably sad.  I started to have those feeling of life not being fair and this not being where I wanted to be in my life.  My life itself is great - he's just not in it to share everything.  I wish I could say I had  turnaround in my thinking and all that, but it was just more of the same.  This is my life now, and I am usually happy.  There will be sadness but nothing that debilitates me now.

When Emily and I had the discussion about the "good fall," last week, we realized that we are ready now.  It WILL be a good one.  All of us are healthy, we all have jobs, the girls are happy, and we're going to the fair for my birthday.  It's the best we can do.

These are the pictures I took on my walk today.  The leaves are beginning to turn, but it will be a few weeks before they're really pretty.

I always walk by these spots not knowing whether I should be very quiet and not disturb any potential animals or make noise for the bears.

And the reluctant student.  She didn't cry but said she was sad.  Several of the kids were crying, and the teachers were just matter-of-factly leading them to the circle (or carrying, in some cases).  She's going to be fine soon.