Today you would be two and a half years old, Zachary. Your half birthday. Thirty months since that amazing day.
It's the kind of day the four of us would celebrate together more subtly, quietly amazed at how much you'd grown in half a year. If you were here.
A special day for you, halfway to age five. Not even a blip on anyone else's radar. Our little secret. If you were here.
I miss you, love, your milestones, more than I can articulate.
C.T. and I painted these stones for you today, to add to your garden. You are our sunshine and our heart.
I feel my chest cave inward, a sad sigh of disillusionment, every time I hear puppy congratulations.
As of the end of Wednesday, he'd been with us a whole day longer than Zachary's fourteen days of life. Our time and attention is now invaded by a new creature - a pet - who shares our home.
I already know our puppy well enough to know he is going to poop seven times a day, give or take one. When I rescue him from his crate in the morning, he is going to do vertical, twisting spins in my arms as he licks my face and neck. When he's tired and ready for a nap, he smacks his lips and flutters his eyelids. His puppy fur is so soft that when he sits, his rear end slips out from under him on our wood floor. He likes to snap at moths and do somersaults in tall patches of grass and hates the sound of the big, intimidating looking trucks that occasionally drive down our road.
He looked up at the sky yesterday and was at once awed and terrified when he noticed a low flying airplane for the first time. He is adorable and trouble-making and chews his toys and my hands and clothes incessantly.
I think we may have almost as many photos of Thunder now as we do of Zachary. And that hurts so badly.
It feels wrong that Thunder lives, spends ordinary days with us in our home, while Zachary does not. Maybe it sounds strange, but I feel envious (for Zachary) that our puppy gets so much of our time, so much normalcy, that he receives C.T.'s attention, some of the hugs and kisses that should have been Zachary's. I find myself even pointlessly fantasizing about swapping the pet for the son, and dreaming it were then possible to go on with Zachary as if the last 29 miserable months never happened.
This consolation prize reality is still, still, so hard to accept. Every new thing since Zachary's death is approached with such tremendous reluctance.
***
Unlike the prior two years, and despite glacially-slow improvement in my feet, I made it to just about every one of C.T.'s baseball games this spring and early summer. I still couldn't bring myself to sit anywhere near the bleachers, where the others parents and siblings were, so I'd set up my chair way out beyond the first or third base line. I even cheered for C.T.'s team at the appropriate times this year, as if the outcome of the game mattered to me. It's progress.
A few weeks ago, a mother I remember from C.T.'s kindergarten class showed up to the game with her two younger sons. I remember her from C.T.'s kindergarten year. We had worked on the Halloween party together in the fall of 2013 when she had a kindergartener and a preschooler. The following fall, just seven months after Zachary died, I saw her on the first day of school, her belly about to pop with a third child. A few months later, she was toting a stroller and a brand new baby boy in the infant carrier. And now, here they were again - the baby boy now a full fledged toddler, in a baseball cap and running around in sandals carrying a sippy cup, his mother throwing her head back in laughter, small talking in the stands with the other moms.
Every time I see these little humans, these mothers with new living children, produced after Zachary lived and then died, I can hardly believe my eyes. My aimless unanswerable questions ensue... How do these plans for children and lives materialize so effortlessly? How do all of these little people not die? How have they grown so big already? Why have two of my children died, and all three of hers are living? What is it like to feel so carefree at a baseball game, to casually banter with other parents, unencumbered by this kind of sorrow?
***
C.T. has joined a travel soccer club, and while we expect it will be a nice opportunity for him, I'm seriously dreading the whole getting-to-know-the-team process.
Before try-outs in May, the coach asked us if C.T. wanted to practice with the team, to see if he could keep pace. While B and I sat on the sidelines, watching the practice, one of the soccer moms decided to try to talk to us. Of course, her second question, after introducing herself and asking which boy was ours, was:
So, do you have other children at home?
While I held my breath, B took the lead and gently informed her that C.T. has two brothers, both of them deceased.
I don't know if I should have been shocked by what came out of her mouth next, but I was.
Oh, gotcha...
Do you live on the north side of town?
So, with the arrival this week of emails about the club/team social events for the summer and fall, involving families, my anxiety and panic about being part of this group has reached a crescendo. I just don't know how to be graceful about Zachary's death... on top of B.W.'s. I don't feel safe letting these people into even a fraction of our life, nor do I care about "socializing".
***
I recall that B's (high school) senior yearbook blurb about his dreams and his future life included something like:
... I hope to get married and have three children...
I don't think he could have ever imagined it this way.
