I could never foresee a decade of you being gone.
Ten Octobers.
It feels wrong to not be finding a ‘special’ way to express this anniversary of grief. Like, somehow I should find a different and more adequate way to express how broken my heart is.
Blue hair, blue eyes.
Mis-matched socks.
I can still hear you say “Mommm’ in a half groan when I’d say something silly, or “Right mom?” when you would want me to agree with you about something equally silly. The joking lilt in your voice, your laugh. Wearing the style of clothing popular for young adults in 2016. Your long blue sweater that belted at the waist and had long sleeves, slightly flared.
All the things you loved, Doctor Who, Animal Crossing, your cats, your friends, your family.
You were SO vibrant, and here, and alive. We were going to have Thanksgiving together that weekend. Canadian Thanksgiving – in October when the leaves were just starting to embrace the red and yellow tones of their golden days. Your favourite time of year.
A huge part of me is still there – fixed in time, in a space before the police officer told me you had died.
The jubilant space of non-concern. Of normalcy.
Life has been so busy the past few weeks with your youngest brother starting university in the same city you wanted to live in one day, and the training I’ve been doing for my new job, that I haven’t allowed the thoughts to come. They would start to rise up, and immediately anxiety and panic would start to fill my chest, and my throat and I couldn’t sit with the sadness. I kept telling myself to just wait until the day. Just wait until the worst day , and be sad then.
Now it’s 12:09 am on the worst day.
10 years of missing you.
I love you forever.
Mom
