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I'm not sure how its possible or where the time went or that my brain has wrapped around it, but on Sunday it will be three years since Patrick died.
Some of my family spent their morning today at a church service for him. I didn't go. Part of me felt guilty for that. For my folks and my sister, this is a special moment for them and it helps them. But for me, well, it just doesn't leave me feeling anything. I do my own thing. That's what matters, finding a way to visit a place inside of yourself and take a breathe. Finding a way to mark the calendar and remember and be sad for a while. Allowing yourself to feel the shit that you push back every other day, that's what anniversaries and ceremony and ritual do.
Losing someone close to you means always grieving. You never, never stop. We miss Patrick every single day. We have our own little ways of giving him props or a shout-out. We cry. We visit his grave and look at his photographs. We laugh. We find ways to say his name and honor his memory. Its all you can do really. Its all any of us can do when someone we love passes.
We do one more thing though. We tend to do all of those things together. And in those excellent moments, when we're all in the same house and Lisa has us all laughing, in the backs of our minds we're wishing he was there. And in unison that little thought combined underlines every laugh and every hug. I'd like to think that its then he hears us somehow. That in those silent little wishes and hopes, he knows that we carry him within us. That together we got through and together we will be once again.
Some of my family spent their morning today at a church service for him. I didn't go. Part of me felt guilty for that. For my folks and my sister, this is a special moment for them and it helps them. But for me, well, it just doesn't leave me feeling anything. I do my own thing. That's what matters, finding a way to visit a place inside of yourself and take a breathe. Finding a way to mark the calendar and remember and be sad for a while. Allowing yourself to feel the shit that you push back every other day, that's what anniversaries and ceremony and ritual do.
Losing someone close to you means always grieving. You never, never stop. We miss Patrick every single day. We have our own little ways of giving him props or a shout-out. We cry. We visit his grave and look at his photographs. We laugh. We find ways to say his name and honor his memory. Its all you can do really. Its all any of us can do when someone we love passes.
We do one more thing though. We tend to do all of those things together. And in those excellent moments, when we're all in the same house and Lisa has us all laughing, in the backs of our minds we're wishing he was there. And in unison that little thought combined underlines every laugh and every hug. I'd like to think that its then he hears us somehow. That in those silent little wishes and hopes, he knows that we carry him within us. That together we got through and together we will be once again.
"BREATHE"
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