Grief and age

It wasn’t on purpose. At least, I don’t think it was on purpose. I was out of the country on my son’s birthday. My very-much-alive son. He turned 12 last week. That number I’ve been dreading. The one that Riley never made it to. He is forever 11-and-a-half (and also mythically 15). I think it was just the way the summer schedule worked out -- there are a lot of people to coordinate with. But it’s possible that there was some running away involved. Some covering of the ears while saying la la la la la… “But wasn’t I with dad last year on my birthday?” he asked when I told him that I wouldn’t be around that day. “Don’t we alternate?”

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.