Love You to Infinity
1999 Preschool with Nick
October sneaks up on me. It’s my favorite month of the year. I was born in October and it’s the month I became a mom twice over. Check out my blog, Loving October, for some other reasons I love this month.
The pain of October used to wipe out the joy. It’ll be 14 years since we lost Nick to leukemia. More years without him than with him. It’s always strange how numbers matter with loss. These milestones we focus only make us feel worse.
For the first 2 years that Nick was gone, the 26th floored me. Each month it was 1, 2, 3 months without him on that date. It would render me useless, the day marred by that thought.
My 38th birthday.
1 year had gone by, and I didn’t know how I survived. Ironically, the second year was worse because some of the numbness had worn off. Life had moved forward, yet I was still stuck in the numbers, slowly thawing and doing everything I could to stay frozen, unfeeling.
The countdown to the 26th was like a slow thaw, a prickling of skin when your foot falls asleep and you don’t want to move it because you know it’ll hurt. Yet you have to move, because that’s life.
13 months, 14, 15, 16, 2 years. When would the pain end?
That’s the error with grief. It’s not a problem to be solved. There’s no algebraic formula to suddenly make you feel better. It’s personal, not analytical. It’s emotion-based, not logical. How I dealt with loss was completely different from another mom or even my family members. None were right or wrong. All were absolutes that made sense to us at that time.
2002 in Cape Cod
I may be able to count the years that Nick has no longer been with us.
I can’t quantify what Nick’s loss cost his family, his friends, his community, and those who never met him.
But I’ll also never be able to add up the incredibly rich and wondrous memories we shared together.
I’ll never be able to measure the impact he had on countless people.
His ripple effect is infinite.
I always tell my boys that I love them to infinity. My love for them is timeless.
Nick at 12-years-old.
I don’t count each month anymore but I do count every moment with those I love as a blessing. I’m grateful for the gift of Nick and the priceless memories of October.