Three long years...

Every year on this date I try to write down what I am feeling so I can go back and compare to how I was feeling the year before. I can look back and see how things were looking 1 year past, 2 years past and now 3 years.

This year it was a lot harder to write. I'm not so sure if that means things are blowing over, that I'm forgetting everything happened or if I am just forgetting him. I do know that this year is the first year that I haven't felt as angry or resentful towards other people. I still have my moments, I'm not going to lie, I get very jealous and get this hate on for people when things are going good for them because something so terrible has happened to us and sometimes I feel that more good things should be happening to make up for it.

This past year has been a little difficult because it was the first year that Mason noticed that he didn't have a dad like the other kids. It's been very hard to explain that he does have a dad when he is not here physically, but we're working on it. In fact, that is the theme of this year's letter. Even though he is not here physically, we still have our memories. Unfortunately for Mason that is pretty much limited to the first 15 months of his life so it is very important for everybody that knew his dad to share all they can with him.

When I thought of keeping someone's memories, I thought of a poem that has become pretty popular in movies and TV shows lately but still pretty deep and beautiful... (I'm really not one for poetry but this one really stands out...)

 I carry your heart with me 
(I carry it in my heart)  
I am never without it 
(anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling). 
I fear no fate 
(for you are my fate, my sweet) 
I want no world 
(for beautiful you are my world, my true) 
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you. 

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows 
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) 
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart. 
I carry your heart 
(I carry it in my heart).

 -ee cummings.  

Usually on this day Mason and I will do something special and we usually end up at the cemetery. I think we skipped going there last year for some reason, but this year we were there. Mason is really starting to understand what has happened. He still did ask some pretty outrageous questions (is my dad coming out [of the ground] soon? Is my dad at the hospital? Is he staying down there because he is cold?) but he really does have this sad understanding part of him that comes out every once in a while. Today that showed when he turned around and said "bye dad...I love you forever and ever" and then asked if we could go back on Saturday to see his dad again.