Dear Mica, We survived the 1st of many to come holiday seasons without you. We survived Christmas and New Years and even the anniversary of your death. We all survived, but I don’t think any of us enjoyed much of it. Don’t get me wrong, we had moments of laughter, but at least for me it just left me missing you.
For Christmas, we made a book of photos of you to give to everybody. It was hard to create and hard to hand out but it felt good to have everybody in the room thinking about you and your happy times. I used some copy from this blog, to document your milestones. I was thankful to have those words, written by me before the world changed because I tried to write them from me now and it just couldn’t be done.
Santa brought us an elephant ornament. An animal to remind us of our animal lover and a physical elephant to maybe keep the metaphorical elephant in the room at bay. He also left a blue marble in your stocking. Ned took that to mean that he needed to take it to your grave, I has assumed that it was a replacement one for the one Ned gave to you in your casket. Which ever way, I hope that it will become a tradition.
For New Years we visited our adopted family of friends. We slept in the same room that we shared with you just days before you died, and it was hard. We watched the other siblings sets fight and interact and it was hard. And I watched Ned watch them with a sadness in his eyes and that really hurt. Our friends struggled to talk about you, to tell me stories like Sam had asked them to do. But they did, and we all cried.
On the anniversary of your death, we holed up with just the three of us. We cried and hugged and Daddy cleaned the ovens. We went to the cemetery with the marble in hand, but Ned couldn’t leave it there and asked if he could do it later. We of course said yes. We left chocolate hugs for you and before we left, Ned went back to have a moment to himself. I don’t know what he said to you in that moment, but he gave the chocolate hug a kiss and set it up right. I hate to say that Sam and I were glad to see Ned cry, but he has been such a closed book that we were relieved to see him let some emotion out.
I love you little boy. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow too.
whatmom 