Next week

I don't blog regularly. I want to, but I can't. I could make myself a list of topics, a list of things to share and moments to write about, but unless I'm feeling passionate about that thing, I don't feel like I can get it out without it sounding forced. I have to wait for that one topic, that one moment that stirs in my brain and I feel the utter need to spew it on this blog, just so I feel better. Then I wonder, why do I share it? Maybe I'll keep this one private. But often times, I don't. I click POST, hoping it makes someone else feel not so alone in their grief as well.  So, I just had that moment. I'm sitting at the dining table while River naps upstairs, watching/listening to Ellen DeGeneres talk with David Letterman, I'm attempting to figure out Quickbooks, which I apparently promised Travis I'd do and I'm also brainstorming what to do for Bryce for Elementary graduation. Now before you say, "You don't have to do anything", I know, I know, but I'd like to. So, I'm looking at the calendar for next week, clearly avoiding Quickbooks, and as much as I am looking forward to next week, I'm equally dreading it. Not because my biggest guy is no longer in elementary school and has the attitude of a preteen which, let's be honest, I sometimes feel the need to punch him.  Not because there is so much happening on that calendar that I feel exhausted looking at it, and not even because I have to get a mammogram on Tuesday because my wonderful breasts decide to make lumps every so often, so at the age of 25, I was told I needed regular mammograms and biopsies. That's not even why I am dreading next week. I'm dreading next week because squeezed into all of the chaos, is June 5th. The day etched in my brain as the worst day of my life. It starts on Jakes birthday. The countdown. Steven, my late husband, died 9 days after Jakes first birthday, and the countdown continues. June 4th I recount the moments of where I was and what I was doing 8 years ago, living in total bliss, unaware of what the next day would bring. I recount the moments I woke up June 5th, 8 years ago and had no idea that my night would end the way it did. I had no idea that at 11:30pm that night, I would be lying across my husband,  begging for him to not leave me, after he was already gone. I had no idea I would be cradling my 3 year old Bryce in the emergency room as he grieved for his Dad, still not knowing he had actually died, while I looked around the hospital at all of our family and friends, screaming at them for telling him, when actually, no one had said anything, he just new. 
These moments don't escape me, despite the events that will preoccupy my time next week. Bryce is asking a girl to the school Luau next week, he asked permission because I said "no girlfriends, they're drama". Yet, you only have a 5th grade Luau once and when we asked what it meant when he asked her, he said nothing. Travis and I get to serve snacks and watch the kids awkwardly giggle and force each other to dance in front of their peers. You know Travis will have his camera too, or get on the dance floor. Bryce is also having a promotion ceremony, he's conquered elementary school, all reminders of what Steven is missing. Also a reminder of the support system he has gained since that loss. Travis, his parents, his sisters and family. Still, that little tinge of pain is there, creeping in and settling right on the spot where I should be happy. So, next week, as it creeps in, will cause me to be emotional in a way I typically am not. I'm not good at letting it out and feeling the feels, it comes out in sharpness, frustration, moment of me hyperventilating on my closet floor with the door closed and the need to just sleep through it all. Is any of this healthy? No. It's called coping mechanisms. You just let it happen. Yet, as a mom of 4 boys, a husband who is unbelievably supportive through it all and a sideline there to pick me up when I need it, I push through. I'll look around with gratitude and complete appreciation for the blessings I have gained since 6/5/2011. I lost one, who is never far from my mind and gained many.  I not only see Steven in his sons Bryce and Jake each day, but I oddly see Steven in Trenton and River too, because without his loss, they wouldn't be here. 
I've been binging the Podcast Cafeteria Christian thanks for my sister in law and I heard the host Nora explain how she told her son about heaven after losing her husband and his dad. She said,  "Inside of you...you have a light inside of you. When your body dies, the light....it just goes all around us, so your dad isn't here, like his body isn't here, but his light is here and sometimes we feel it. His light is everywhere." I like to think that. I like to think Steven isn't missing these moments because the feel good moments and the light that is around us is him being a part of it all too. 
So, as I anxiously away next week, moving through the motions of each day, I will get through it like I have the last 8 times. You just do because you have to, because you don't have a choice and because if he could talk to me, he would say, "Enjoy it, I'm okay."