Anniversary

I don’t have much of a mind for specific dates. A few obvious ones stick with me. September 11, of course. The Fourth of July. Christmas, December 25. November 22, the day Kennedy was shot, the day I first learned that the world is not as fair and wonderful as I thought it was, the day my generation lost its innocence.

And January 7, 1993.

That was the day Daniel, our son, our only child, died in a stupid, tragic accident when he was at college. It was a day I learned once again that the world isn’t fair. At all.

Today is a warm day in January in Chicago. A beautiful day to be out with the dogs, although it’s a little muddy at the dog park. It doesn’t seem a lot different from a lot of other days, and it isn’t. The clouds scud across the sky in a way that reminds me of good film making. The air smells like wet dog, at least in my back yard where we haven’t cleaned up frozen dog poop for weeks, and it’s not going to happen today either.

Today is totally different and totally the same from all other days for my wife and me. We got up and put one foot in front of the other. There was a time when we could barely do that. We took our showers, and washed our hair, and put on our clothes. We drank our breakfast coffee and read the morning newspapers.

Ann and I don’t talk about the anniversary because it is too painful, but it looms large between us, and we acknowledge it with little kindnesses. I may do an extra load of wash while Ann works. We have lunch, we take naps, just like every day. Perhaps we have a stiffer drink than usual. Perhaps we are more silent, or perhaps chattier, today. Perhaps we are crankier or more patient.

And in truth, this anniversary is not as bad as it could be or as bad as it has been in the past. The second anniversary was the worst because that was when the realization hit that every day after it we would live in a world without Daniel. Without his college graduation. Without his wedding. Without his children. Without his house in the suburbs or his loft in the city.

The pain of the finality has eased, blunted, softened. We are surrounded by people who love us and whom we love. Tim, whose parents died when he was in high school, gave us his two sons to grandparent. He was the first who really saved our lives. David is already in college. And Jonathan, the younger of the two boys, really the two young men, has so many of Daniel’s mannerisms, and looks like him in so many situations, that it’s uncanny and sometimes makes my heart pause and my throat tighten.

Derek and Shannon saved our lives when they asked me to be their chosen dad. I will be forever grateful! Derek went to Annapolis and then had a six-year tour of duty in the Navy. My blood pressure went up when he spent his six months in the Gulf, and came back down when he returned to the States. He was at NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain on 9-11, and grounded the commercial flights that day on his supervisor’s command. He talked with Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, and George Bush. After his tour of duty was over he went to Veterinary School at the University of Illinois and graduated last spring. He is back in Colorado working as an intern in a veterinary emergency hospital. (Can you tell how proud we are of our Derek?) His sister Shannon, whom we love no less deeply, lives less than a mile from us, and we see her frequently, have dog play dates, and depend on her more than we should. She bought her own house, earned a masters degree, is Phi Beta Kappa, all those good things that make us proud of her, too.

Of course, we continue to "get by with a little help from our other friends," to quote an old Beetles song. They support us in a variety of ways. Our church community, our wonderful neighbors, old friends and new friends, people we worked and work with: they all extend themselves in ways they don’t recognize or understand. They are angels unawares.

Which is not to say we don’t miss Daniel. We miss him terribly. The weeks leading up to the anniversary, the anticipation, are always worse than the day itself. I dream about him and weep in my dreams. My eyes well up at unexpected times and a dagger of fresh grief carves another hole in my heart. But it happens less often than it used to.

Today is a beautiful day. It reminds me of the day the terrorists attacked the twin towers in that it is so ordinary. That day I went outside and looked at the blue sky, void then of airplanes, looked at the flowers in bloom, looked at the green grass and the green trees, and wondered how everything could be so much the same when life had shattered. I took the dogs this morning to the dog park, and talked with Pat and Connie, with Fred, with Petra, and felt the same way.

Life has changed, but it still looks the same.

As always, I welcome your comments, by first name, first and last, or anonymously.