I don’t know if I’ll be able to write tomorrow, so I’ll say this today: as you might expect, we are weepier as October 8th approaches. One whole year without Mark. But I recently realized – and this actually helped me – an “anniversary” can be just another day. Here’s what I mean….

…364 turns to 365 turns to 366 and the world spins on. We live, we breathe, we learn to laugh again as we are meant to do; AND (not “but”) we never ever stop thinking about Mark. Every. Single. Day. One foot in both countries. So, on some level, why should one day be different just because another 365 days have passed?

I’m not saying that to take anything away from all the ways we can, should and do celebrate a significant date (even, as a dear friend says, a “rebirth” day like tomorrow). I’m not denying – and, in fact, humbly acknowledge and continue to be completely awed by – the incredible impact of the love and prayers so many (including so many of yours, dear readers) have poured over our little family (please don’t stop), which have helped us survive and hang onto God: I say it to take away some of the extra weight I feel because tomorrow marks (ha) one year….AND to try and remind myself, to train myself (because I have trouble doing this) to recognize the depth, the complexity, the singular importance of EVERY day. To slow down, to sit in the honesty of “right now”…even if “right now” is awful, I can dimly recognize that pain/grief is the flip side of the love/joy coin. In fact I am counting on laughing and crying ourselves silly while watching a funny movie tomorrow evening, in Mark’s memory.

Steve’s traveling but sent me – sent us, really – incredible blue roses yesterday, for another anniversary, almost the same date: our wedding anniversary. This touches me so so so deeply… and yet, along the same vein of thinking: I am married to Steve every moment of every day, not just on October 6th, once a year. Given that he has a movie line or pun for almost every moment of every day, perhaps surviving his humor another year is worth celebrating (levity!). But it makes the same point I am still working into my head and heart: every day matters.