Why

Why?

There are at least a million different combinations of words that I have used to follow "why".

It is late and I cannot sleep. 

Tonight I wonder why there are so many holidays and occasions.  Why can't the year just be still for one minute while we get our feet steady on the ground of the earth that no longer is home to our oldest son?  Why Christmas? Why New Year's Day? Why the first spring, the first summer? Why Mother's Day and Father's Day? Why our first family vacation, minus one? Why the last day of school, or Max's championship baseball game, or Lucy's ballet performance? Why our birthdays?

We are forced to keep moving through each day whether those feet are steady or not, and now we are past the better half of a year since he died, and all I want to do is stay home in our house where he lived with us and not look at a calendar or celebrate holidays or drive past the accident site or attempt to be composed. There are no holidays this year; every day is simply another day without Joe.

We are so fragile.  We look strong, but we are pieced together so carefully. Each of us. 

Tonight we were in his room, digging through some drawers looking for his back scratcher. Max wanted it, to scratch his back. Instead, Max found Joe's markers and wanted to claim them for his own.  Yes, Max, you may have them, but they stay here, in Joe's room. Don't disturb the museum- is that our goal? At what point do we wash the clothes in his hamper? Move his toothbrush from his bathroom countertop, where he left it that morning? Feel free to give his Sharpies to Max? Why won't the year slow down so we can figure this out? It was too much tonight-- we shuffled everyone out of the room, removing nothing and never finding the back scratcher.

We are not us without him.  We might look like a family of five, but are forever a family of six, minus one.