Mileposts...and tragic mannequins

Well, we've made it through a couple of big ones.

Michael's 27th birthday was last week, and today was the first Thanksgiving without him.

I wasn't sure how to approach his birthday; not knowing what would be the best and most meaningful way for me, for us to mark the day.

I know families who faithfully celebrate the birthday of their loved one every single year, with cake, with balloons. I think that's really lovely. Is that they right way for us? I wasn't sure.

Talking with my husband about it, we both just ended up shrugging our shoulders. We'd never walked through the death of a child before; never passed a child's birthday like this. We just really did not know what would make it work for us.

In the end, we did...not really anything. Which was maybe the right thing for us, this year. At any rate, it's the way it happened.

I changed my Facebook pictures to images of Michael, the morning of his birthday, and wrote a short post about it. As I clicked the "publish" button, my heart sort of quivered. I felt...fragile. I suddenly knew that I could not sit there for even one more moment. I could not absorb the kind and loving responses that would follow. I decided in that moment to not look at my computer for the rest of the day. It was the right choice for me. My heart could not do it.

I knew that we had some practical things to take care of that day, but had imagined that we would still do something special...like maybe go for a hike with our other son, who lives here. But that didn't happen. He ended up having a really busy day. So did we.

We are in the throes of preparing for the next big transition in our lives. We needed to take a big load of our things a day's drive away over mountain roads, to store them. This needed to be done before the snow came. It just happened that the day we needed to pick up the U-haul truck and get it loaded was Michael's birthday.

So...that's how his birthday passed. We worked hard all day, loading the truck with everything we had ready to go into long-term storage. Our son Josh came over during a brief window of free time and helped with the heaviest things.

After we were done loading, we scrounged something easy for dinner, and the day was over. My husband went to bed early, as is his habit. I checked in on Facebook, and some tears fell as I read and responded to the very loving words people had posted on my page, and on Michael's.

I guess that, for this first birthday-without, this was the right way for the day to go. Maybe it would have been too much for my fragile heart to put too much emotional weight into the day, trying to mark it in some deeply special way.

Today was Thanksgiving Day...all about gratitude and family. I thought, this morning, about the gaping hole left by Michael's death, and decided to just focus on having a good day. Nothing big, just a simple, good day. Our two youngest kids were here. I'm exhausted and battling allergies, so dinner was slow and late. But that was fine. We just had a low-key, relaxed day. Everyone pitched in to make dinner. We watched part of a movie and worked on a jigsaw puzzle. It felt right.

With everything going on, my emotional resources are fairly compromised. I don't think I could have handled marking Michael's absence on these important days in any meaningful way.

I had not realized the tentative state of my emotional equilibrium until a few days ago. I had gone to the "shopping town" a couple of hours away, to run some errands. This is a normal part of rural life. We drive a hundred miles for basics. I was at my last stop of the day, walking through a Fred Meyer store, and as I passed by the menswear section, I suddenly felt like I'd been punched in the chest. I glanced up at the mannequins, and I suddenly saw our beautiful Michael. Why did mannequins have to get big and muscular now, of all times?! The shoulders and arms of those display models broke my heart, looking so much like his, and I fought tears as I walked away. Who would have thought that headless, gray plastic men could make me cry? Fragile.

The bottom line is this: there is no right way to do this.

Every single person walking the harsh road of grief is just doing their best to survive the impossible. Death is horrible. Having a piece of your living heart torn away is an unspeakable pain.

To keep getting up each morning, keep eating and breathing and tending to the details of life, is a very courageous act. Those who can make it through this dark night of the soul without turning to destructive things for ease are profoundly brave. For those who can't, I have fresh compassion.

I am so proud of our family.

We are making it, one hard, jagged step at a time. We are loving each other and giving each other room to walk this road in the way that works for each of us.

We are making it...and for that, I am deeply grateful.