Two years.

A slight free-association writing.

I have thoughts come to me in the in-between moments … when I’m reminded or missing or wishing or aching. It’s a smell or the way the air feels or the change of season or something the boys do … always something the boys do. It’s a portal to the past, to a specific memory or feeling, a reminder of times that were so sweet but now cut so deep. There’s a sharper edge to it and frequency that speeds ahead when it’s not just your mind remembering but your body … your every nerve and cell. It’s what trauma does when anniversaries come … your body is forced into reliving. I remember him like it was yesterday, except I remember the younger him, the healthier him. Memories that felt as though they were fading have become clear again, like a movie playing in my head, and all I want is to force change in those moments … to rewind time, to bring him back. My head doesn’t look for a solution anymore, for a fix that could have changed the outcome. I guess they call that acceptance. What is, is. But the tightness in my chest, the feeling that I can’t breath without him, the tormented parts of my brain that if I could just extract would maybe provide relief. I grip my head, my chest, my stomach, lose my appetite, curl up in a fetal position, sleep with one of my boys close in his small twin bed. The sleep is restless, interrupted … but it’s no different in my king-size bed, where only memories take up space. The normalcy I fought for over the past year since the 1st anniversary vanishes and is replaced with a disbelief, once again, that he is gone and of every razor-blade of a memory that surrounds this upcoming week just two years ago. And I tell myself, as I have many times before … the only way is through. Hold on tight.