Thursday, March 3, 2022

2 Years 1 Month

Dear Sonzee, 

There came a point during your early years, as was the same with your siblings, that I stopped saying your age in months when I was asked how old you were.  I think it was due to trying to keep you all younger for longer because months meant you weren't yet years.  As each of you got closer to the 2-year mark something shifted and your age no longer was represented by months.  Maybe it is some sort of pressure that causes the shift because at some point everyone has to grow up? Maybe it is because it is less clumsy to say a small year versus a lengthy amount of months? Maybe it is just because at some point it becomes impossible to remember what month you actually are and the year is simpler?  Or maybe, it is just simply because after a certain amount of months of counting your age, life takes on a different role and the day itself gets forgotten and the next thing you know another year has passed?

Last night I was thinking about the significance of what will be happening on Friday, (I will wait to post about that until tomorrow) March 4, when I realized that meant today was March 3, and that meant it would be another month that had passed, but one that I didn't even realize was coming.  It was the first month in 2 years that snuck up on me, the first month that I didn't even think about grabbing a rock despite having no time to decorate it.  It was the first month that was about to pass me by without me even realizing another one had passed.

That fact alone makes me upset, but also, it makes all those phrases that I have been told for the last couple of years from others who are further down the path of grief show their first glimpse of reality.  It doesn't and won't get any easier not having you here, the pain is worse than I could have imagined, that won't ever change, but it definitely becomes different.  Your absence becomes it's own rebirth of life in a sense.  The timeline began all over again and so did all the parallel components to that of having a newborn baby.

I am at the point in this journey where the moments of grief that aren't what they once were catch me off guard.  The reality of how they have changed is what causes me a different form of pain.  The fact that I am noticing less in some ways, and the fact that things happen without being in the forefront of my mind makes me sad, but point out how this journey will continue to go.  At some point, I stopped putting monthly stickers on your onesies.  At some point, I stopped sitting you on the same corner of the couch to take your monthly picture.  At some point that even became ok and was something to celebrate itself. 

While I won't ever celebrate anything when it comes to my ever-changing journey of grieving you being gone from me, I will probably honor it with a good cry session and give a nod up to the sky in your honor.  So for today, in honor of it being 2 years and 1 month since you are gone, I will give myself grace and acknowledge that I am okay not rushing over to the cemetery with a pretty painted rock that says 2 years 1 month.  I will give myself grace for almost letting today pass me by unnoticed because one day it won't be an almost, and when that day happens, it too will be okay.

The tears even if they dry up for a bit, they will always return.  The love for you is never gone and won't ever be.  The grief and its weight is never going to be lighter or something I will ever get over.  Your absence won't ever not be felt.  Your life nor death will ever be forgotten.  But for the first time in 2 years, I truly believe that some form of this life after you has the potential to get easier, and I won't overlook that it happened today, at 25 months.

Until next time.

Love always and forever,
Ema


The Mighty Contributor

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