Almost a Year

In a Facebook group that Dan set up last year to share thoughts about Pierre, Sonja started a thread to observe that it has been almost a year since Pierre died. In response to that, Valery then posed the question: What to do on the day of?

Here is what I posted in reply:

It's safe to say that no day has passed since last February 20th when I have not thought of Pierre, but at least as that anniversary approaches, I know that the pain of losing him has lessened and the joy of living has returned.

So, how indeed to mark the day? Do we mark it at all? I have to work that night, so it's not like we can leave town and I don't think we even desire to. There's no sense that we need to escape the house on that day, even though we know that the time is coming that we will leave this place behind.

There is, on my part anyway, a desire to remember what was good and joyful about Pierre. It is my resolution to enjoy the memory of our son. He was a good person and I am glad to have had him in my life.

Although I must perforce acknowledge that the rest of my life is now shaped by his death, it is not to my detriment, but quite the opposite. Because of his life and death, I am who I am, now stronger, wiser and hopefully more compassionate. I am resolved because I wish to recover, to forgive and hopefully be forgiven.

In this way I know I will forever think of Pierre as my beautiful and radiant son, one whose flame perhaps burned brighter than my own, and from whom certainly my own flame now burns more intensely. I lost him in one sense; but in another, most real way, I still have him with me always. His essence is in my hands, my visage, my voice.

So, a year has mattered, but how to say so?