Anniversaries

April 9th used to be a time for me to wrap myself up in my grief. I would take the day off, or as much of it as I could, and think about the day that permanently divides my before from my after. The day my older brother came to pick me up at school. The day that my name was called over the intercom to report to the office instead of finishing my computer programming class. The day that my teacher looked at me as if she were the one who wanted to throw up instead of me. The day that I watched my mother die. That's too much for one day to hold. So I would dwell in it, shut out everything else, and let it be the only thing that I thought about.

Twenty-four years later, shutting off the world for twenty-four hours just isn't an option. There's too much in my after: a husband, three kids (grandchildren she would love), a job, and just the everyday-ness of my life. I wonder if this sort of anniversary celebration isn't, after all, a better one. It's one where I cook a new dinner, where I cheer my son's volleyball team, where I help one daughter write her numbers up to 100, and the other daughter find pictures to illustrate her report on rabbits. It's the way she lived, I think: faithful to complete the tasks she was given, faithful to her husband and children, faithful to the life given her by God.