I knew today was going to be hard.

Three months ago, Peter died. I still hate that this is his verb. I hate that he’s gone. I hate the disease that took him.

All right. Enough of that.

I hate the silence. I want to call him. I can’t. I want him to call me. He can’t. I can’t listen to the voicemail I have kept from him because it makes me cry. And I have already cried today and I am actually comfortable with my grief and with crying but I’m sitting in a room with students taking a benchmark test so now is not the right time to cry.

Enough of that.

More often than not, the days pass by seamlessly. I feel the pinch of grief. The absence and the silence. I register its existence and then become involved in my next task. A lesson plan for The Hunger Games. An article that needs to be edited. A review I have fortotten that I need to finish writing. A Lego or Fego set that I want to buy. Or build. Or re-build. I write, multiple times a day. I am reading books. Real honest to God books that have hard covers or paper covers and paper pages. And I’m writing my own novels. 12,000 words have been logged into Homeleaving.

But right now, my grief is settled on me in a weary, exhausting frame. I’m tired. I want to go home and sleep. Or go home and sit in the sunlight on my back deck and watch the shadows shift across my yard as the sun moves. I want to trip over my dogs or have them haunt me as I walk around the house.

I want to see my brother in 3-D. I want to talk to him about nothing important but just the bi-weekly call he would make because I was so damn forgetful and I still feel a nudge of guilt over that. I want my brother whose brain was not being gnawed away by a hideous form of dementia. I want my brother who sponsored my Walk to Emmaus. I want my brother who showed up at my hospital room when I was laboring with my first child.

I want my brother.

Yes. I know the futility behind those wants. But it feels temporarily good to speak them. Acknowledge them. And then release them like dandelion seeds drifting in the wind.

Thursdays have become easier. Today is really not that hard, thankfully, because I have learned skills and strategies that help me push through the day and find my peace. I know that grief is not my enemy. She’s just a part of my daily existence, much like the background pictures on my phone. I know her. I acknowledge her. In some regards, I kind of love her because she has given me the freedom and validity to emote when I need to emote. No questions about why I am feeling a certain way. Just peaceful living.

Peaceful living. Even with grief. I can do this. I can live like this. Because, in the end, I will come to a point when I really won’t count days or months or years. I will just live.