I missed my post last week because we took an extended 4^th of July weekend.

As tradition demands, we spent the early part of the day at my parents’ pool with friends. In the evening, my in-laws hosted their annual firework show.

This is how we have tackled the 4^th since before Tony died. It’s a tradition that made sense to keep up and we’ve carried on.

However, this year there was a new undercurrent of emotion and change.

My parents are preparing to sell and move out of the home they’ve lived in since I was in middle school. Right now, I don’t have an overwhelming sense of emotion around their move. I don’t think I’ve slept there since the night before my wedding. As the kids have gotten older, we’ve spent less and less time at their pool on the weekends. But we all knew that pool day on the 4^th was the last one for us and our friends to attend together. You don’t have to have huge feelings about a thing to acknowledge its impact.

Later, at my in-laws we had a toast to celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary. Fifty years is such an accomplishment and deserves to be toasted. But it also draws attention to the fact that Tony is missing from our lives way too early.

Then the sun went down, and I held Tony in my heart as we watched the fireworks.