I’ve been dreading this day for a long, long time. For more reasons than one, but mostly because I knew Brett would be broken. Even as I type this, I feel inadequate, because I know I cannot explain in words the loss and sorrow he feels right now.
Last night Brett said to me, “How are we supposed to move on from this? I’m not ready to move on.”
The memorial service is over. The calls and texts have slowed down. People are back to work, chatting about the incessant heat and whining about anything and everything on social media. If I’ve learned one thing this past week, it’s that social media should be avoided in a time of grief. You will never notice how much people complain about dumb things more than when you’re grieving about something of actual importance. I had to take a break because if I heard one more person whining about the weather, or that Starbucks misspelled their name, or that they didn’t feel like working out, I was going to scream. Note to self: don’t complain on the Internet. I have never realized how completely and utterly obnoxious it is.
How do we move on from here? I don’t have the answers. I have no idea, really. I guess we’ll pick up tacos tonight, like we always do on Tuesdays. We’ll give Everett a bath and sing Twinkle Twinkle before placing him in his crib and kissing him goodnight. We’ll crawl into bed and talk about our days, and of course, we’ll talk about Gene. We’ll call Brett’s mom to check in on her and see what she needs from us.
And then, we’ll wake up tomorrow and we’ll do it all over again. We’ll put one foot in front of the other and take care of ourselves and take care of Everett.
We’ll remember. We’ll cry. We’ll tell stories. We’ll pray. Tonight, tomorrow, six months from now, twenty years from now. We’ll work on our marriage and try to be better parents and have more babies and teach them all to play basketball. Why? Because that’s what Gene would have wanted us to do.
So, that’s what we’re going to do.
