Life Back in Asheville

There's more to say about my dad. I suspect there always will be, and perhaps it will come in waves, kind of like the grief, because we can only process so much at a time. It feels really good to be home and back into a routine. It helps to have some structure as the skeleton of our days, a dose of normalcy in a season that feels anything but normal. We also have some great political theater and a toddler to distract us, bring us back to the moment, make us laugh.

On Wednesdays, Myles is not in the care of anyone but me, and so I'm trying to make it our special day. Today we had a picnic lunch at the botanical gardens and, after nap time, went to a really nice park to play and run through the crunchy leaves. It was a balmy 82 degrees, a record high.

Nights have been hard, Seth and I get downright irritable and I think it's the overwhelming nature of knowing that I can't ever call up my dad and hear his voice again, I'll never see that bright smile except on video or in photographs. We just miss him. There's no way around the grief. But it does give us pause, and sometimes in that pause we're able to give praise for the moment, for life, for love.