Passenger

It's been two years to the day since Annie Louise Rivers was born and then died. 

It's a hard sentence to write. It's a harder fact to accept. 

But life accepts it for you. People grieve of course, but I'm rather partial to the idea that grief is something that overcomes you. It's something that happens to you. You are grief's passenger.

Annie's ashes are in an urn right over there. Everyday. Some days I notice them. Some days, honestly, I don't. Other days, then, I make myself notice them. Confront them. Confront her. In those moments, I can feel the pain, the physical pain, of hearing the news. I can feel the bittersweet joy of her in my arms. I can feel the moment when they finally take her away.

And then the feelings pass. They fade into the background noise of daily life and stay there for a while.

And that's how it goes. That's how you get to two years later. It happens to you. Tonight, like last year, we are going bowling. It's a thing we do, without rhyme or reason, to remember and to celebrate. 

I am grief's passanger. But I am joy's passenger as well.