Today is the Day

Today is the day, four years ago, that I last saw my son’s smile.

Today is the day, four years ago, that I last hugged my son.

Today is the day, four years ago, that I last felt my son’s arms around me.

Today is the day I despise.

Today is the day I cry.

Today is the day I hide.

Today is the day I battle.

We began our night with smiles, hugs, and hope, just like many others across the globe. A “party” — drinks in hand — chatting, laughing, eyes glued to the big screen.

A shift, a wondering, and then dismay.

Smiles and hope morphed into shock and fear. This was, I now know, foreshadowing.

17 days from that day, my 22-year-old son, Conner, would be dead.

This is the day, among others, I battle. I fight inside my own head, running around frantically grasping at memories desperate to hold onto them, organize them, and never forget them.

Today is the day, I battle with a deep and abiding ache, emptiness, and sadness. My shattered heart seemingly at war with my sane mind.

Today is the day I must fight with every ounce of energy I have in an unwavering attempt to honor my beloved son’s life. To honor his memory and to lift up and highlight his kind heart, intelligent mind, talented nature, and sensitive demeanor.

Today is the day to use my son’s life, spirit, and memory as a way to stand against the darkness a shattered heart can cloak upon us. His death and absence a demise, but his life and love a way forward.

Today is the day to persist and to resist and to stand up and to stay awake.

Today is the day to let freedom ring. Today is the day to ring the bell of grief and show others what a person in this battle looks like.

It’s me. It’s you. It’s all of us.

Together.

I cannot bring back my son. I cannot change the past. I cannot hide from my responsibility.

I can continue the race to capture and store precious memories, and I can continue to fight, to live, to do the right thing.

But, I cannot win on my own.

Over the last four years, I’ve turned to you (and you and you and you) for support, guidance, advice, love, a listening ear, and sometimes tequila. ;)

And, over the last fours years, you have shown up.

You were there for me, and, on the days I was not in battle, I was there for you. We have held each other up.

We are united. We are the same. We are together.

Today is the day.