School pictures

I made it.  I had to go to Dallas for a training meeting this week, and I made it through.  I didn't even cry too much, and not during class where anyone saw me.  Everyone tiptoed. What do you say to someone like me? I felt bad for them.

There was this one day when our instructor started to tell a childhood story about how his dad was a funeral director, and he just thought it was so cool...

I left the room. It was a good time to go pee.

I know this sounds crazy, but I wish I had taken a picture of you. At the funeral home. I think it would be easier for me to look at the picture and say yes, he is really gone.

Cause most days, I just don't believe it. I get this feeling that you're just out there somewhere, like you've run away from home. Only I know you didn't because I saw you, I was there. I know what happened that day. But it doesn't feel real most of the time.

I took the boys to a martial arts open house tonight. One of their friends from the neighborhood was going with his parents. When I see his dad, I still see you standing at baseball or soccer games, your feet wide apart and your arms crossed over your chest, nodding and talking earnestly about something I'm too far away to hear. That stance that said dads are talking about dad stuff.

The stance that also made me think there's public Neil. The politician.

Tomorrow will be four weeks. How is it you've been gone four weeks already? A month. I was so strong this week. I hate that. I hate that it actually gets easier every day. The day after you died, that's what I told my friend Michelle. That I wanted to stop the clock just until I was ready, and I couldn't do it. Time was marching on without my permission, you were already a day gone, now four weeks. I can't stop it.

Things are not going easily for C in school. He's struggling with reading, and now with math. I have no way of knowing if you have anything to do with it or not.

When I got back from my meeting, C's school pictures were here. You know what he said to me last week?

Did Dad die before school pictures or after school pictures?
Daddy died after school pictures, honey.

The day after. He was bullied the day of school pictures, he was crying that Friday night after school and while I was gone getting my bagel on Saturday morning. You talked to him about it for twenty minutes. Then later that morning you decided to die.

I just can't wrap my brain around that right now. There's no way you could have thought that was a good idea, the right choice.

There's no way you would have decided not to see these two grow up.