Dear Mike,
It was your birthday yesterday. It didn't even occur to me until Dad pointed it out that you would have been 40. That's so hard to imagine. When we were young(er) I saw you as being so grown up. It was only recently that it occurred to me REALLY how young you were when you died. I was waiting for you to get your life together, each year thinking "this is the year". Now I see you were truly so young. You must have felt so much pressure from all of us to "get it together". Having been on this growing up journey myself I see now that not having it all figured out by age 24 is pretty normal. I mean some people do but they also are likely to have a rude awakening as they age and have realized all they did not get to discover about themselves maybe from the responsibilities in life they incurred, intentionally or not. This summer I also discovered that I have lived nearly half my life without you. THAT is just crazy for me to realize. Embarrassing too. The loss of you has harshly impacted pretty much all of my life since you died. The few years after I often thought, "when will it let up?". I would ask doctors, friends, therapists and even research how long does grief last. Lots of people and info say one year. I haven't checked recently but now if someone were to ask me I would say "It's individual".
I've never been a big New Year's person but I got to thinking about it. I seem to treat your birthday as a New Year's of sorts. I anticipate it whether I'm looking forward to it or not and now even try to make preparations. But much of how my year goes depends on how this time of year goes, your birthday and the anniversary of your dying. To make it more complicated there's numerous birthdays and Feast Days now too. While writing this I've only just discovered that beginning yesterday, your birthday, at sundown, is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year's. Maybe a part of me is Jewish at heart. I keep thinking to myself each year that this is the year I will accomplish all this stuff I've dreamt of. Sound familiar?
We celebrated your birthday with a special dinner yesterday. Julie and Sawyer came over, Kerrigan was working late and we had tacos and chocolate eclairs. Well profiteroles really, but they tasted sooooo delicious. We're going to continue the tie-dye tradition but really we'll do that this weekend. I have spent a lot of time prior to your birthday this year thinking of what I need to do to continue to heal. I was surprised to realize I still have these wounds that are not healed yet. When I heard about Katie that's when I knew I wasn't all better. Part of me feels if I can just get all the art of my journey, part of life with you and mostly of life without you, some big wounds will close. My heart was pounding when I put the link to the blog on facebook but after the initial shock I felt soooooo much better. I could focus, paid more attention to my kids and just had this relief...that it was done, my feelings were out there, and I wasn't hiding anymore. Since I felt that, now I really think I'm onto something. I don't even think I could imagine the incredible release of energy when that project in my mind is complete. I hate to even think that a New Year's resolution is pointless because frankly I do but I want to succeed at this one so badly. It's like now I WANT to wear my heart on my sleeve, when for so long, really, the feelings and images have been this dark spot in my soul where only on lookers could see the repercussions of it's presence.
Love,
Gabby
P.S. My favorite thing about this blog is you're always looking at me. I love the connection with your eyes, your smiling eyes.
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