Bitter Anniversaries

Today is a day that, frankly, I have dreaded for a few weeks now. Today, my little Peanut is as old as Hudson was when she lost her life so suddenly and so tragically. It's an eerie, odd feeling to know that we're now at this milestone - 17 months and 12 days. And its a milestone I would trade anything not to experience, if only to ease the suffering of two dear friends - Mandy and Ed - who do not deserve the grief they now feel daily.

Mandy wrote recently about how she missed all the things Hudson would now be doing now if she had passed this day:

Hudson would be 21 months old today. Rounding the final bend into her second birthday. I can only imagine all the incredible things she’d be doing now—making full sentences, pronouncing syllables she couldn’t say before, eating popsicles, maybe using the potty and sleeping in a big girl bed by now. Who knows what else? I hate that I have to wonder.

And I understand, in a tiny small way, how she feels. Hudson was our guide post - for those of us parents with younger kids we could always count on Hudson to show us where our little ones were headed. If Hudson was making a certain sound, or word or gesture by a certain age, it was a safe bet that Peanut would be too within a couple of days of that age in Hudson's life. When Hudson started walking, and climbing the stairs in our daycare room, I could see Peanut and the rest of the kids watching intently, and trying to catch her. Looking at Hudson, and Mandy and Ed, we all knew what was coming.

Except now we don't. Tomorrow, when Peanut wakes up, she'll be 17 months and 13 days old. Hudson never made that day. Tomorrow, we start experiencing Peanut in a whole new way - as the trailblazer, with no one to serve as our guide. Tomorrow we start living a life that Ed and Mandy can not yet live (though I am certain they will have more kids - such is the nature of their love for each other).

No doubt we'll have a ton of joy from this. Hopefully, we'll be able to share that joy with everyone, Mandy and Ed included. But it will always be tempered by the sure and sadly painful knowledge that we're missing the head of the line. We'll always know that our guide is missing, and we'll always wish that Peanut and Hudson could have grown together, to a point of deep friendship and mutual inspiration. What would that have been like? I only know in my imagination, and as Mandy says, I hate that I have to wonder.