Today isn’t perfect, it just is

Dan said it best this morning when I was fretting over Isla's cheesecake breakfast - Nothing we can do will make today perfect.

I wanted all her stuff arranged beautifully around the kitchen table, but I couldn't find it. The dogs needed to be let out and the baby needed to eat. Lorenzo was awake and hollering for chocolate milk, and we had to get out the door to get to work. Life was happening. Every year I get this creeping panic that we're not doing it right, we're not celebrating her birthday with the solemnity and grandiosity that it deserves. 

At Wegmans last night, picking up the cheesecake, I got this heaviness in my feet and my heart when I saw a "7" foil balloon. It felt like I was moving through sludge; I just can't imagine Isla being a seven year old, alive and well and being one of our brood, but I also don't understand how she isn't here. Some days I feel her presence right over my shoulder, other days I wonder if her life was some sort of passing dream. 

Today is tough, and I'm surprised that I didn't anticipate it being so hard. I usually think of the birthday as the happy day, and the anniversary of her death as the sad one. But grief doesn't care what the calendar says, it just makes itself known when there's something to be learned. And I think this year, as I celebrate Isla's life and mourn her death in the coming season, the lesson I want to remember is that these traditions will evolve with time and time important thing is keeping her in our family, today and every day. Listening to Lorenzo chatter about Isla's life and death this morning was sad and wonderful - a knowing of his big sister that can remain a part of his life, forever. Maybe next year Leo will tell us something about her, too.