It’s been six years to the day since we lost you. In fact, in the time it will take me to write this, the exact second on the clock when you took your last breath will come and go.
Somehow, it all feels different this year, though.
Unlike years past, I didn’t wake up this morning with a huge weight on my chest. My heart didn’t feel as though it was going to break in two, and I haven’t shed any tears . . . yet.
I can’t pinpoint the moment, but sometime over the years, October 8th has gone from being the hardest day of my life to just being October 8th again. It’s not that the loss of you has grown any less significant with the passage of time, it’s just that this particular day is no longer unbearable.
As my years of grief go by, the anniversaries soften but missing you remains.
I don’t miss you today because it’s October 8th. I miss you today because I always do.
A square on the calendar isn’t the hard part; The hard part is all of the other things on all of the other days that you aren’t around for.
I wish you were here to share a walk around the lake with the dogs and talk about life. I wish you had been on the sidelines of your grandson’s first soccer game, cheering him on. I wish you could come visit us at our new house—I know you’d love it. I wish you were able to sit and laugh and marvel and swell with pride over all of the things your grandbabies do and say. I still wish with all my heart you had been there to walk me down the aisle at my wedding.
I wish you were here, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never stop wishing that . . . but I don’t need a specific date on the calendar to remember you.
This year, I’m letting go of the ominous sadness that has hung over this day since you left. I’m bidding farewell to the heaviness that has scarred it for so long.
I won’t feel obligated to be any more or less sad that you’re gone.
I’ll smile or cry or laugh or whatever it is that my heart tells me to do.
I won’t pressure myself to make a grand gesture in your memory, because I’ve made it my mission to honor you as best I can every day.
I’ll think of you today just as I thought of you yesterday and will again tomorrow.
It’s been six years to the day that you went to Heaven, and today is just another day of missing you.