5 Months

Yesterday was five months since you died, Oliver. I have never counted time this way before. I have four times had the joy of counting months enveloped in the sweet fragrance of baby wash and warm blankets while knowing stares yielded to heartfelt giggles, gurgled sounds emerged into first words, and first steps were taken bravely across kitchen floors. I felt my heart grow with excitement and a tinge of melancholy with each as I noted these moments as both precious and fleeting. The times I had with each of you when you were small and the five years I had with all of you together may perhaps be my greatest gifts in this lifetime. How lucky I was for so long.

And so now I am counting time differently. I am feeling space grow and stretch out between this life without you and the one I had before when you were here and we were all together. Realizing there is no way to bridge these two lives, I am left with the messy and uncertain process of making the most of what we have now, which is still a lot, but just so much less. This process will take me a lifetime, my lifetime, the whole thing. I know that now. The work ahead of me is making peace with what is, rather than what I would want to be. And so here I go, one step at a time.