Roughly a year ago, I had talked about "anniversaries." And how to calculate the anniversary, and what date should I count? And regardless of the date I should count, the date that actually occurred.
And this year...well, maybe it's not about dates on a calendar. Or maybe it is. Maybe it's just a little more than that.
The good ol' Book of Faces now has that handy-dandy "On this date" feature. Yesterday there was a reminder that two years ago, Teddy and Harper had a "date" - which was Amanda and Jason watching Teddy while I took Laura to Walter Reed for dehydration. Which is when I had the very first onset of the acute symptoms.
Today, Facebook is reminding me that two years ago I went to see "Lone Survivor," where I had really bad diplopia and trouble focusing on the movie. Which I ignored.
But the other thing is, it's the Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend. A few days ago, sans Facebook, Laura recognized her own internal discord and emotional rollercoaster, and it's all associated with this weekend. Sylvia could have made her presence known any time of year, any weekend. But the fact that it just happened to be on a holiday weekend means that it's just that much easier to remember what happened and what went on.
So that should be bad enough. But then today happened. Today's weather.
One of the long-running themes of the blog, back when "it" happened, was snow. Two years ago, we realized, and joked, that all the major events - the initial diagnosis, the first surgery, the biopsy results, and the second surgery - were all accompanied by snowstorms. Some of them big, major, 8"+ snowstorms. Snow, and MLK weekend, are both associated with Sylvia.
So Laura went to church this morning, and I stayed home with the boys. And then it started snowing.
She came home after the service was over. I was watching the snow fall with Teddy, and then it started sticking (which was most surprising to me). Teddy wanted to go out and play in it. And then the waves came crashing.
It was seemingly out of no where to me. It took me a good couple of minutes to finally piece it all together. The weekend, the date, the snow...and suddenly, I was just standing there frozen. It hit me pretty damned hard.
And I went back over to the couch, and I hugged the boys, and I hugged Laura, and I gave 'em each a kiss. And I am reminded, once again, of just how lucky I am to be here. To have them in my life.
Two years later, and still going strong. And still snowing, so we went outside and made a snowman.
