three hundred words a day. april 1.

Eleven years ago today, my father in law died. At the time, that day, April 1, ranked right up there with the day my mother passed away for the title of worst day ever. It was unimaginable really, in the span of just a few short years, I lost both my best friend and the man that next to my own father, was the most influential man in my life.

He was larger than life, always. In a world where most people can count their true friends on the fingers of one hand – I believe he would have had to use his toes and perhaps a borrowed digit or two. I loved him more than I can express and there is no doubt in my mind that he loved me, too. And although there could be times now and then when he could be grumpy and maybe just a bit gruff, somehow he understood me, and with me – he was always gentle, always patient, always kind.

I went to yoga this morning, my heart and head were filled with him, with memories both good and sad, and I sensed I needed the stillness that yoga often provides me. Midway through, Billy Joel’s Only the Good Die Young began to play, and as the tears streamed unchecked down my face, I smiled and I knew - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that he saw my grief and the best he could, in a way he knew I would understand, he was letting me know it was ok.

Anniversaries can be funny things sometimes. We want to remember the easy ones - the birth days, the weddings, the graduations and promotions. And yet, for me it is the difficult ones, the deaths, the losses, the dissolutions, that seem to carry the most weight. They help me to remember, and to an extent – they are helping my grief because it seems that it is that remembering that is allowing me to heal.