I woke up to a sky that matched Jacob's eyes. Clear, pale blue with a hint of sun. Today marks three years since he left earth for heaven and it still feels like yesterday and hurts like never before.
I have the day under control so far. As long as I don't actively think about anything at all, I'm sort of okay. Ben has strayed about as far as I can exhale. All I have to do is reach out one hand and he's sitting right here. Lochlan is close at hand. Daniel is here. Joel flew in to be handy because he drew the map of my mind that they still follow to this day. August is very quiet so his thick Newfoundland accent doesn't do further damage to my soul. New Jake is still incredibly surprised I ever smile at all. He wouldn't, he tells me. I tell him Ben has been instrumental in bringing that back. Ben said the face I wore for the first several weeks, the one of infinite shock and sadness is something he never wants to see ever again.
I am not marking Jacob's death today.
Instead I am celebrating what would have been his fortieth birthday.
He would have been quietly reflective, humbled and anxious to run through a list of the things he has done, measured against his father and his grandfather before. Measured against the other men than he knew, measured against society's conventions of things men should achieve by this age. He would have sought out the wisdom of those who have already marked this milestone and he would have enjoyed a dinner and some cake, and probably a couple of glasses of whiskey, degenerating into a positive torrent of wordy Newfie-babble punctuated with A. A. Milne quotes that I would answer as a challenge and he would be delighted.
He would want a long walk. To reflect. He would want to make love and reflect upon our marriage. Our lives, my head, our future. Those illusions he kept for me and maybe right now I'm less bitter and more grateful for those late night planning sessions in which we would list all the things we were going to do. License to dream, Bridget. If you could go anywhere, do anything, tell me about it. No limits, piglet. I still plan to do all those things I told him those nights, and I will bring him along in my heart.
Today we're going to go for that long walk and share our memories of him and then we'll have that big dinner tonight and make a cake, maybe with candles, maybe without. We'll toast to Jacob with water instead of whiskey and wish him a happy birthday and then I will sleep and the day will be over and the fourth year without him will begin.
I sound so together as I write this. I'm actually not. I am shaking like a leaf. I have gone back over it a million times, taking out the vitriol and the bitterness, inserting spaces since when I am upset I usually don't include them and I'm trying to be gracious where grace has made a hasty exit. I'm trying to find meaning where there clearly is none at all. I need to let that go and maybe I will. Maybe this year that's what I will work on.
Or maybe I'll just keep doing whatever I'm doing because I've made it this far. Only I didn't actually do the work. The boys did and I'm going to sign off now and go and enjoy their company. They are the reason, along with Ruth and Henry that I get up in the morning at all instead of diving back under the covers and ceasing to breathe, hoping no one can find me and I can just waste away to nothing and then disappear. They hold me. They hold me up. They make me cook when I'm not hungry and sleep when I insist I am wide awake, and love me even when I am being tiny, impossible, Fragile Miss Bridget.
Thank you. I love you guys.
Happy birthday, Jacob. I love you Pooh.
