I look back at dates on the calendar and think back to events over the last year, and my mind goes inevitably to you.  When I see pictures of Rowan’s birth, I think that on that day you were alive.  On that day we had no idea you would die before your next birthday.  I remember talking to you after your dentist’s appointment, and I now know your death had already been set into motion.  In remembering the trip back from Derick’s wedding, I now know it would be a week, just one short week, before you left your home for the last time and entered the hospital.  Calendars, ledgers, bills, trips, birthdays and holidays all serve to define my life between before and after.

Before, we had you in our lives, physically.  We could touch you, smile at you, sit across the table from you, have a drink with you, talk with you, envision your future.  Now we have you in spirit.  Maybe someday that will be enough, but not now, not today.  This, knowing I will never see you again in this life, is a sadness beyond words, but the even greater sadness is in knowing what you lost.

I grieve for the life you lost, for the years denied you.
I grieve for the family you would have created.
I grieve for the people you love and for those who love you.

Your brother was just here telling me about the box he made for your ashes.  He says it’s the finest thing he’s ever made, of that I have no doubt.  It began life as a carving of a tree that he started working on for you after you became sick.  Now it is part of your box, a box he made from the same wood as that which holds your grandparents’ ashes.  Talking to him today made me so incredibly sad, for a brother who lost his brother, a man he so clearly loves and respects, a love and respect returned by you.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to see beyond my own sadness.  We are all diminished.  We all grieve.

It has been 4 weeks and 1 day.

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” – Thornton Wilder