There’s the final medical procedure on the last Monday of
April and the looming appointment for my GRE in early May. There’s also the end
of the school year fast approaching and the plane tickets for far off
Albuquerque pinned to the fridge door to remind me that June means freedom. Everything
moves quickly but in slow motion and my writing is almost as fractured as my
thoughts. I find myself with lots of snippets but nothing with enough substance
for a proper blog post. It is a state of incoherence that I experience every
year at this time.
Every year except
last year.
It’s been almost a year to the day since the phone call that
changed everything. Almost a year to the day since I abandoned the last weeks
of school like they meant nothing and drove home to be with her. Almost a year
to the day since my world collapsed inward and became about her and only her.
Almost a year to the day since the Summer of Mom.
I have a goal this summer: to spend as little time alone as
possible. A month with my brother, then a month with my father. They work,
obviously, so I will have the days to myself, but the evenings will be filled
with the presence of family. I am not giving myself so much as a single sunset
to just stare at the ceiling in an empty apartment and pine for the voice I
will never hear again.
I’ve always somewhat loved the happy chaos at the end of the
school year. Last year I had to give it up to do the most important and
difficult thing I had ever done. This year I am beyond grateful that it has
returned to me. I am overbooked, foolishly optimistic, and blissfully frantic.
So though I know my silence may look disconcerting it is not altogether
unhappy. As the one year anniversaries pass—that of her diagnosis and, later
this summer, of her passing—I am not opposed to being too preoccupied to think
on it much.
