Butterfly Day

(The title of the last blog post indicated that I needed a simple name for this day. I can't remember if someone suggested it outright, or whether they said something to make me think of it, but either way, the name I now use is Butterfly Day. Torin painted on a picture of a butterfly at school on the very day his mother passed, and his teachers had just so happened to put his name and date on it.)

Another year has passed, and it simultaneously seems like a short time and a long time. I do still write letters to Danielle, but just haven't been posting them here. The one I just wrote took a lot out of me, in fact, so this probably won't be a long update.

When I took over the blog, one of the things that felt important in continuing this legacy was to document not only the grief process, but the process of healing. 

Overall, on a day-by-day basis, I'd say I have come to terms with my loss. By that, I mean that, except for days like today, and on a few rare other occasions, I am no longer actively grieving. Sometimes it feels like it's too soon to have reached that point (and I've been here for a while now), like some kind of betrayal or something. But I think maybe part of me was subconsciously preparing for a long time, having known since the day we met that her cancer would likely someday return. Plus, everyone processes grief in different ways and at different speeds. I don't beat myself up about it.

Last year, I started feeling like I wanted to "put myself out there" again, and eventually did so. A little over six months ago, I met Barb. Long story short, we are in loooooooove, and she's been immeasurably supportive and understanding of my situation, particularly on days like today.

Danielle once told me in no uncertain terms that this is exactly what she wants for me. To find love again after she was gone. (She also insisted that, though I was the love of her life, she was not the love of mine. I disagree though; I fully intend to have two loves of my life.) At the time, it hurt to hear those words, and it may have hurt for her to say them. But they give me a lot of comfort now.

I may have buried the lede. While I have (mostly) come to terms with my loss, I have not at all come to term with Torin's. I can comfortably talk with anybody about any facet of my life with Danielle without blinking an eye, but as soon as I think of Torin and Mama together, or - worse yet - Torin in some future scenario without his Mama, things get... fragile.

He still doesn’t understand. He knows she was here, and that now she's gone. He’s seen the pictures. Maybe he even has some real memories still, other than the pictures/videos - who knows. It makes me happy to think so, even though I know the pics/vids are all that will stick with him as he grows older.

He has a few times now asked whether (or even just stated that) Mama was coming to visit “real soon”. Breaks. My. Heart. I’ve always told him that no, she wasn’t, she was gone, and this last time, I even explained using terms like “passed away”, and said that once you pass away you can’t come back. I know he still doesn’t understand, and whenever I think about it (which isn’t overly often, thankfully), it weighs heavily on me.

I think I said something like this in a previous blog, but grief and love are intertwined. There is no grief without love, and no love without (someday) grief. And I want Torin to understand and love his Mama. And that also means simultaneously inflicting grief upon him, and it kills me.