normal day

The day began as most do, awakened by small human alarm clocks, washing berries and slicing bagels for breakfast, packing lunch boxes for school.

I remember the shirt I was wearing when we spent the day at the developmental clinic, nervous and nauseated and sweating. I trashed that pink sweater years ago.

We took the van to be serviced this morning, cooked chili and collected children, helped with homework and dance-partied to nineties hip hop before bed.

I recall the exact aisle of the store I was in when I received a devastating diagnostic phone call. I have not been back to shop there.

I threw away the clothes and abandoned the cart, but cannot skip the day on the calendar. The events of Januarys past threaten to affect the tenor in our house. It's a month that feels like it drags on anyway, a time of year that requires some defending against under ordinary circumstances. Like the card from Cel's grandma said: mid-January sucks.

I remember what my daughter felt like in my lap, more soul than body, rocking together toward heaven.
I've rocked three healthy boys in the same spot.

It's not quite a normal day, but I do my best to breathe through it, promise myself pause and permission to feel it. My sister tried to apologize for her mood recently (she is a little hormonal, but also completely radiant) and I reminded her that she's allowed to feel what she's feeling.
I am too.

It's not a straight line from bad to good, from sad to happy. But there has been so much magic over the years, in the space between heartbreak and hilarity.
We are not in search of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
We have carved out a life where we can be happy, even if it isn't quite the happiness we envisioned.
Turns out happy can be what happens when all your dreams don't actually come true.
I didn't know that being the mother of three boys was my dream until I became theirs.

The thing about death is that even when you think someone is gone, glimpses of them remain in those they left behind. We hear Celia in Hank's voice, see her in Tolliver's face, feel her in Tuck's hugs, and we remember that much of what we're missing lives inside of us.