Yesterday, Sunday, was the ninth anniversary of our son Robby's death. I always keep a three-day vigil, during what was once his short little life, and hope for a different outcome. It's always the same in the end, of course, but I do it just the same. I imagine I'm not the only mother to do this. Saturday, Day Two, was my "I'm so angry, I gotta MOVE" day, so I broke out the long-neglected rollerblades and went for an hour-long spin all over the neighborhood:
I hate how I look in these pictures, but there's nothing I can do about that right now, short of plastic surgery. Plus, I had shorts on under the skirt, so my butt looks enormous. Hee. Oh, well.
Sunday was the actual anniversary. I woke up sobbing around 0300. Sophia, to my chagrin, came down to find out what was the matter. I explained about Robby, and she went to fetch Daddy, who came to comfort me. My nose always expands about 300-fold when I cry really hard, I think:
I don't know why I took the picture; I just love the iPhone's Instagram app so much!
When I'm stressed, aside from taking my pills, I have to do something to de-stress, and my go-to hobby of choice is knitting. And so, for the first time in a month, or maybe two?, I started hexipuffing:
At long last, I broke into my delightful mini-skeins from The Knitting Goddess, pulling out Summer Sun first because it was just the cheery colorway I needed at the moment. Each mini makes, for me, three full puffs with enough for maybe 1/3-to-½ of another. Plenty; I was expecting two!When I finished that trio, I napped. For a very long time.
When I finished that trio, it was about two house later, or perhaps three, so I went down to "my" 7-Eleven for a Diet Coke and a white rose. I was in luck; they actually had one nearly-perfect specimen. Just one:
In past years, we let go a slew of baby blue balloons for a happy-birthday message to the wee laddie, but the environmentalist in me could no longer stomach that. I took to Facebook for suggestions and got a number of lovely ideas, but the one we decided to go with was letting rose petals go in the water for him. Hence the rose.
We got this stone out of a catalog years ago, maybe the first year, and it sits out in the front "lawn" with the rest of the stones that our living trio made with their hand- and footprints and various stones and marbles.
I started to knit some more, but by then I was exhausted again, physically and emotionally, so I napped. For a very long time.
At last, Rob was waking me up, telling me it was time we go let the petals free in the water. It was a cold, rainy day, just the sort of day for such a thing, I suppose, so we bundled up and headed out to Chick's Beach. It's normally a very calm beach with soothing waters and empty sands, much more suitable than the oceanfront for such an endeavor, but we were in for it this time. The tide was in, and the storm had riled things up quite so; we got soaked and froze our little selves to death!
Jack took his petals from me and went first:
Next up was big sister Chloë:
She placed her petals in so delicately for her brother, true to form.
Sophia went next:
Unlike her more dainty older sister, Sophia, who is a bit more... brutish, shall we say... rather dumped hers into the water. All well and good. I told them each to do it however they wanted to do.
Daddy was the penultimate petal-pusher, before taking the camera from me:
Poor Rob got absolutely soaked and frozen to the bone. I wore shorts and Crocs, so I was good:
I decided to just fling my petals all out at once, just as the wind blew in my face. Um, that plan therefore backfired, and my petals wound up all over the beach. Ah, well! I enjoyed the experience immensely; we'll be back to do it again next year.
Before we left the beach, Jack placed the rose stem and the sprig of Baby's Breath into the water for his brother and Robby's pals, before taking off running up the beach when the waves overtook him. Time to go.
When we got home, everyone showered except me, to get warm and rid themselves of wet and sandy clothes. And so, I wound a ball of the Goddess' "Twirl" colorway - it's beachy-hued and appropriate, right? - and knit three more puffs before taking another wee nap.
When I awoke, it was after 2300, just in time to go on my errand of bringing a friend to work, and now here we are, catching you up with Vigil 2012. I'm about to dig into another Goddess colourway; this time, it'll be Soft Sky:
Maybe I'll have a few to show you on th'morrow, or maybe I won't and we'll just do our regular school routine. Until the next time, my loves, carry on and be well.
Fin.
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