4

It hasn't escaped me that it's been four months since you left us. I've felt your absence all day. I lingered a little longer on your pillow this morning and I spent the evening with a few of your brothers, doing what you loved to do, listening to them play some music.
You wouldn't believe how big Kate is. She started swim class this week and I swear she's grown 3 inches in the past month. She hasn't forgotten you. But I can tell the void that you left is healing.
I've struggled more this month than in the past three. I don't know how to explain it. I feel so raw. There are times when I can't feel you around me. It scares me. I don't know how to be without you. I don't know how to be alone. I spent a few weeks living in the "what if's", the "I should have" and the "why didn't I"'s. It's so unhealthy and so against your every wish for me. I'm working on moving through that though. I'm trying really hard. You know me, I won't give up even when I should. So, you know I won't give up on this either.

I did feel you tonight. Sitting in the audience at the Raue Center. Watching the unlikely trio of Mark, Dan and Rob, sing "Molly Malone". I didn't hold my drink up (a Starbucks, go figure right?) in toast. I held up my phone. My phone with the picture that Josh took of your resting place on the lake. The perfect, calm blue waters, with the gorgeous setting sun marking the place where I said my final good bye to your physical being.
You were there with us. Singing with your boys. Laughing with Becky and Colleen and raising your glass.

"Alive, alive, oh" Baby.
"Alive, alive, oh".