Anniversary Thoughts

In 2012 I was too wrapped up in planning the commemorative event to write about the shooting that created the need for an anniversary.  Or, maybe I was too wrapped up in the sad and the sorrow to allow myself to think about it right then. 

In 2013 I was looking forward, planning good deeds and civic engagement and confident that I could make a difference.  There wasn't a lot of retrospective then, either.  Was it because I wasn't strong enough to look backward, or was it that I didn't have far to look.  Backward was with me all the time, every day.   

2014 and 2015 were cut from a different cloth.  I was saying good-bye to CTG, although I didn't know it at the time.

I know that the distance which time has put between that sunny day and the rain I'm looking at right now has softened some of the edges.  I'm not healing the way I was a year ago, and I'll probably approach it from a different perspective next year.  My years of magical thinking, of remembering, of looking backward, are morphing into several months of calmer reflection.  

I'm trying to embrace the loss, to lushly love the feelings.  I'm not to try to change the facts; I don't have the power to fix these things.  I'm trying to accept that concept, but asking a social worker to stop trying to make things right is not a simple task.  It's programmed in my DNA, I am sure.  It's been my modus operandi since childhood.  

But this is something I cannot fix.  This can be honored and cherished as a part of who I am.  Not all of me, but a very real part of me.  I don't have to have a plan fix it in order to think about it.  

If that was obvious to you, please forgive me for taking five years to catch up.  

I can't bring her back, but I can keep her near.
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If you're wondering how I'll occupy my time today, let me quote my favorite kindergarten teacher:

26 kids can keep you busy!

I'll be sharing the love with little ones and their hugs and their smiles and their lower case h's.