It’s been a whole year since I wrote last. Exactly a year. I didn’t even know that until I logged in to my website portal tonight and looked at the date of my last post. I’ve written before about how extra griefy this time of year always seems to feel, and this year is no exception.
It occurred to me the other day that George should have started Kindergarten this fall. He should have turned 5 at the beginning of this year – he would be on the older end of his class, just like I was. He might have even been in the same class as his next oldest brother, who turned 3 this past spring; we’re currently enrolled in a school that has ages 3-K in a combined classroom.
Our family has expanded, with brother #3 joining us this past spring. I see my two living boys together and my heart aches at the missing member of what should be a trio. I can just imagine it – my three boys, ranging in age from infant to five, playing, fighting, making messes, teasing each other, and loving each other fiercely. I’m so sad that George can’t fulfill his role as oldest of the trio as a living child.
With the addition of a second living son, I now have occasion to reference “my boys” much more frequently than I did before. Anytime I use that phrase with other people, I know that the vast majority of people only think of my two living sons – but I am always thinking of George too, when those words flow from my lips.
Even with all the imagining I do about what life would be like with all three of them alive, the addition of another living child makes my current reality feel even further removed from what I realistically imagine life would have been like, had George survived. I don’t see any reality where I would have had a third living child as a solo parent. Were Sara still here, we may have stopped with one living child. I SO wish Sara and George were here. I love both of my living kids beyond measure. It feels such a paradox holding all of my truths at the same time.
I am grateful to still have people in my life who say the names of Sara and George. I had a beautiful experience when I was in the hospital after the birth of my youngest, and a nurse visited me and said that she had been one of our nurses when George was born. She used both George and Sara’s names without prompting and said that our family had really stuck with her.
August was George’s 6th birthday, and November is the 6th anniversary of Sara’s death. November is also my 42nd birthday, which is the age Sara was when she died. I have feelings about that, though I’m not entirely sure what they are. Sara and I would have been celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary this November, too.
I think before I go to bed tonight, I’m going to put on a record. I was never a vinyl album person before I met Sara, but she loved them and had a decent collection that we continued adding to periodically over the course of our time together. I’ve added a few more in the years since she died – my most recent purchase was Chappel Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” album, which I’m certain Sara would have loved. I’m not a vinyl aficionado by any means, but it’s something that helps me feel connected to Sara and makes me feel a little tinge of sadness but even more peace and joy.
I hope I always have outlets in my life that have that swirl of sadness and joy – they are the best balms on my grief-filled, weary days.