I’ve used this phrase a lot when people ask how I’m doing: “All days are hard in their own unique way, but some days are harder than others.” And there is something about my younger son who is three years, three months and two weeks younger than Riley becoming the same age as Riley (last year -- I definitely ran away last year), and now surpassing him in numbers this year that makes July rank with some of the harder days.
So was the end of the school year when this younger son finished sixth grade. The grade that Riley only started. I wrote about it here in the latest issue of Six Hens.
Riley’s dad calls it “mental math.” All that counting and comparing of numbers that individually and collectively are meaningless, but we, as humans, as meaning-makers, latch onto and attempt to harness and understand in the aftermath of nonsensical death.
The younger son has become the older son. Just as I knew he would.