Aruba

Those people in the pic (second row, right) are shirtless me, Uncle Jimmy, "Uncle" Dee-Dee (that's what we called his girlfriend) and my brother, Eric

In five days it will have been one month since Jimmy passed.  26 days of him not here.

If time seemed flimsy to me before (it did), it seems absolutely unreliable to me now.  We have reached a new month in which Jimmy is not here.  The sun rose, the earth spun, the moon hid, and the kids needed me to pack their lunches.  Days kept coming even though I wasn't ready.  None of us were ready.  I've had to sign Grayson in late twice and he is, by God, ready to call a taxi if I wake up late again.

26 days?

Kicked up with steel-toed shoes is how we all feel, looking for the damned thing to smash up and get rid of.  Each morning brings the crash, the dizzying abyss, the reality that he is impossibly not here. So I let myself stay in bed, mind swimming a bit longer in dreams because there I can hear them celebrating Jimmy coming back home. 

 These are the "them" except not the cute girl, that's my mom.

26 days.


To me, Jimmy is just on vacation.  In Aruba.  Maybe stopping off at his beach house before coming back home.  I did not get to see him so often so this is my out.  My escape.  My back door that I am taking for now.

I'll get away with this until June.  Until our birthdays; mine, the day after his.  Two Geminis.  One in heaven and the other not afraid to find him in her dreams.