Lucky

Oh March, you emotional bastard, you.

Tomorrow I will celebrate my mom on the two year anniversary of her death. The very next day I will celebrate my son as he turns nine.

Two years.

Time moves faster now. I laugh more, I laugh harder. I save less for rainy days, I eat way too much dessert. I am quieter, a better listener. I internalize more, I am less argumentative, and I do not want to talk politics with you. I try not to say "I don't know how you do it" because I know you don't know either.

I love more.

Most days I know I'm lucky to have had my mom as long as I did.

Because on Monday, a friend who'd already lost her mom to cancer, lost her dad, too.

Because two weeks ago marked the 4 year anniversary of my former brother-in-law taking his own life, leaving behind my then 8 year old nephew.

Because another of my son's friends, 8 years old with a 6 year old brother, just lost his dad to kidney failure, joining three more of his peers and their siblings who already lost their dads to cancer, all in the very small circle of people we know.

I am grateful for the thirty-two years we had.

On the hard days I look at my two youngest and I am ungraciously jealous.

There's the enchantingly feisty granddaughter she so badly wanted and didn't really get to know, who has doubled in age and has hair on her head and opinions and says something brilliant every day; my little girl, who dreams out loud about how wonderful it would be to have a grandma, just like Max & Ruby on tv. The baby, and oh did she looove babies, especially mine, who uses his security blanket and smiling eyes to drag random strangers in games of peek-a-boo from 25 feet away, who is so charmingly himself that admitted non-baby-loving people are constantly stopping to tell us that for him they'd convert. And for my almost nine year old, who told me again recently that he can no longer remember her voice, but remembers how she made him feel.


I am so very lucky for all that I have, but tonight my heart wants more.