This time last year my daughter started kindergarten. It didn’t seem real that this monumental time was happening and her dad wasn’t there to see it. My heart always grieves heavier for my children when I think about all the things they are going to miss with their dad. So many footstones that will take place over their lifetime, and they will have to do without him.

This year my son started kindergarten. I again had to distant myself from the actual situation. There are times when I just can’t be 100% in it, it’s the only way I know how to keep it together for them. They need my smiles and calmness to know everything is going to be ok.

But both years now after I wave and smile and send them off on this new big adventure I find myself in the same place. Anger. I get so mad at him, life, everything. Why did this have to happen? Why don’t they deserve to have their dad around? Why couldn’t he just of stayed with us? I know all these feelings are probably natural and you have to go through them. But that doesn’t change the realness of the anger. I want him to make this right. I want them to have the life they deserve. I think the worst part is the helplessness. I can’t change it. I can’t right this wrong. So the only thing I can do is try to give them the best I can, alone.  

Children have an amazing way of adapting to life. When it changes, they change with it. It’s something as adults we struggle with. And so as to be expected, school was great for all the kids. They love their teachers and new friends. And no one seems sad. This is life to them now. It’s just mom and they have learned to be ok with that. I know they miss him but they know he is gone. It’s simple to them, they keep growing and moving. While sometimes I end up stuck. Stuck in the past or in my pain. But they seem to pull me out of it, and start moving again with them. They are light to me.

My hope for them is to grow up and be really amazing compassionate people. People who do well in this world, who cares for everyone.  I know their grief will give them a sense of life that most don’t have even as adults. And so there is some beauty in that. That being said I wish more for them they could have him, to wave and smile at them as they step on the bus. Years from now I hope they know I did all I could for them and that if their dad or myself had our way he would of always been around.