It Has Not Gotten Easier

Everyone told me missing you would get easier as time went on. Everyone was wrong. I still miss you as much today, as the day you passed, as the day we buried you, as the day I am walked away from where your body would spend eternity.

It is true that my mind isn’t constantly spinning, asking, “How am I going to survive this? How can the world continue to turn without you in it?” I think that was the thing that confused me the most. Life just…went on. It kept going, each month I think I missed you more because I missed you in the midst of whatever special event was happening.

When Mylee was born in March I grieved the fact that she would never meet you. She would never get to know the funny, sweet, fun aunt you would have been. She will never know that you would have loved her fiercely.

December tore me apart…all the family get togethers, and at each one, I looked for you. I expected you to come rushing through the door, out of breath with a heap of presents, an empty excuse ready for why you were late. Instead, we lite a candle for you and quietly contemplated how the rest of our Christmas’s would pass without your infectious laughter.

I cried when Ella got gifts with your picture on them and her eyes filled with tears. I felt mom’s grief as she explained how she’d only had the energy to order

stuff for the girls and, it didn’t even feel like Christmas.

I missed you on Jordan’s college graduation, when she got her diploma for, four years worth of work. I missed you after the ceremony when we took pictures with each family member. And, when we all crowed together to eat and cut her cake.

I miss you when Kyler points to your picture and says, “That’s Lauren.” I want him to know you. To recognize your face, to understand how special you were and how there is a hole in our family because you are gone.

I missed you on our family trip to the beach. I wished you had been able to come. I forgot for a moment you weren’t just not able to come, you would never come again. I looked for you in the ocean waves and the bright blue sky with the puffy clouds. I asked for a sign that you were okay. The answer came when the waves washed on shore again and reminded me of all the wonderful times we spent together in the water, sitting on the sand, and laughing together. The times we spent all day in the sun, in the water, relishing in the joy of not having to have anything to else but each other and the ocean.