Day 179

When I was a young adult, I had the sense that I needed to rush. Life was out there happening and I needed to rush around and grab as much of it as I could. Sleeping meant missing out on an adventure, meeting a new friend, or making a new memory.

Parenthood meant my energy renewed the joy of getting to see her experience things for the first time.

Not having Constance as my copilot has changed my trajectory. I don’t know where I’m going. I know it won’t be the same without her. I’ll carry her memory and, ideally, her joy.

With a fractured and sprained ankle, I was unfit to walk, let alone run a race, in Constance’s memory. Rachel got up, got dressed, and went to the race. I lay in bed and set my own goal: not to cry until she left. It’s bad enough that I felt sorry for myself—no need to put that on her too. I gave my grief five minutes in which I drowned myself in self-pity.

Then I got up, got dressed in my Constance’s Crew t-shirt, and went to cheer her on. Today is not the day when I am too weak to get out of bed. Today is not the day that I don’t do the hard thing because it is easier in the short term not to. Today is the day that I remember my daughter and thank my friends.

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