The anniversary

As I've heard from other people, the anniversary wasn't as bad as the days leading up to it. In fact the day before was so much worse. Perhaps next year I'll take the day before off work along with the day of the anniversary.

We had a pretty quiet day. My husband and I took Meg to preschool as usual, figuring that she needed the routine. Then we went to the cemetery. We made it to Drew's grave despite the several inches of ice covered snow covering the path. After spending awhile there, we went back to the car and drove around the cemetery looking at gravestones. The funeral home recommended we do that before we pick out a gravestone, to see what we "like", I don't feel like I could ever like having to pick out a gravestone.

The rest of the time until preschool pickup at 3 was spent doing little. We watched videos and looked at pictures of Drew We puttered around the house. We played with the computer and played silly video games. It felt odd to not be doing anything particularly profound on such an important day, but we were not up for profound.

Our favorite video of Drew has him standing on a chair and roaring with a dinosaur shaped chicken nugget. He growls "Roar!" and gestures the nugget threateningly and the other kids who were around run through the room going "Ahhh!" and running away. This repeats a few times. After crying watching the video the first time, we were able to watch it with amusement. My husband and I went "Roar!" ourselves a few times as well.

After picking up Meg from preschool, we drove to a nearby town to go to the mall and to dinner. Going to the mall was mostly to entertain Meg before dinner, since the mall has an inside playground. For dinner we went to the Mexican restaurant across the street.

When the twins were in the finger food stage, we could guarantee a pleasant meal out by going to any restaurant that served avocados. They loved them, especially Drew. One time when they were around 1 and half, we went to the Mexican place and asked for an avocado for the kids. They brought guacamole. We then explained that no we just wanted plain avocado. They brought out one, the kids sitting in the booster seats devoured it. They brought out another one, that one disappeared too. When we went to leave the waiter brought us a brown paper bag with a few avocados in it from him for us to take home.

That's why we went for Mexican food yesterday. When we went to check out, the owner commented that Meg was getting big and asked if she was in school yet. My heart caught in my throat and I told him no she had another year of preschool. I waited to see if he remembered Drew. He didn't mention him, but I wondered. We've only been there twice since Drew died, but we went there a lot before that.

And so a year has passed, it feels like an eternity and no time at all. Hopefully as time goes on we'll be able to use the anniversary to remember Drew with fondness rather than sadness.