Four months

Last night I had a particularly difficult time falling asleep; I tossed and turned until nearly two in the morning. I was worried about everything from the fact that I have not been overly productive during October to the thought of winter coming and I that need to get new snow tires for the car. It was one of those nights when I flogged myself for nearly every personal shortcoming I could summon. Mostly it was an effort to avoid the coldest, hardest fact that today is the 20th of the month and it marks four months since my father died. On the 20th of each month I have a hard time with obsessing over his death. I wonder if death ever ocurred to him on that day. When he was eating lunch did it enter his head that he wouldn’t be eating dinner that night? When he drove away from home did he know he would never again drive into the drive way and come home? No. Of course not. How could he?
Today has been hard for both my mother and me as we try not to dwell on the date. I heard her rise this morning and sigh. She had lunch with another friend who lost her husband about two years ago. Devon and I got out the mixer and made oatmeal raisin cookies. Tonight we are eating a couple of the chickens we raised and then butchered over the summer. Cassidy is having a lovely little girl over for the night. We are going to feast and play a board game with the children. 5:46 p.m. will come and go like it has every day since June 20. Although we are trying our damnedest to not curl up in a ball and mourn this day, it still hurts and is hard to breathe through it. We miss him. It never seems to stop and certainally hasn’t lessened. But if only for this evening we can appreciate all that we have and go to bed knowing that we are in a good place, then it will have been a decent day.