The First Anniversary..the Gift #5

Anniversary dates are difficult for the griever. Why they are remains sort of a mystery to me in a sense. It’s just a date on the calendar but we mark it and just like we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, death dates are much the same. They seem to bring us back to the day, to somehow make us remember with more detail the course of events, the exact feelings and how you have made it through yet another without someone you can barely breathe without. As I write this post, the song by Diamond Rio, “One More Day” is playing in the background. Accidental? Maybe, probably, but it sums up perfectly what the overwhelming feeling is. The overwhelming wish for one more day and what you would do with it…..one more day. We would all wish for one more day.

As time moves forward you can ask anyone in this place and they will tell you that you don’t have to look at the calendar. The body feels it before its actual arrival. Suddenly, one day you say, “Oh, that’s what’s wrong with me. It’s coming up.” The very first anniversary is slightly different in that you spend the first year of loss marking “firsts.” There’s the first birthday they aren’t there, the first Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day…the list goes on and on. The first death anniversary is a milestone of sorts. Many people outside of the learned world of grief 101 mistakenly think that you will have somehow made it past the hard part once you cross that magic date. Truth is, it’s a milestone but more of a starting point than a finish line. Your work can now begin.

I was gifted on the morning of the first anniversary of Brian’s passing with a beautiful experience. Very early in the morning hours of February 18, 2015 I was lightly awakened by what I now know is a familiar nudge from a presence in my room. Trying to explain it is difficult because seeing spirit is not something easily put into words. It is not what you see in movies, is not always the same or can honestly be described adequately using simple language as we know it. I will do my best.

Again, I was familiar with the prodding to awaken as there had been some similar experiences before. It was not alarming as I eased from being first lightly awake and then fully to see two figures standing at my bedside. They were not clear in human form but I knew them. They were white and glowing and comforting. Immediately, my soul and my heart knew that it was Brian and my mom. Brian communicated first. I “heard” his voice though it was not out loud. He said to me, “What can we do?” I too said back without speaking out loud, “I’m just so happy that you are here.” I felt so unbelievably peaceful in that moment. There was no fear of the unknown or of what was happening. I knew only that I just wanted it to last. My mom seemed to take a backseat to Brian (she always does) and said she was going to see my son down the hall and was gone. I asked Brian if he could just lie with me. His answer was, “Well suurre.” Drawn out and a little silly just like that. I felt it physically when he did and somehow I drifted back off to sleep with that peace and the comfort of him there with me.

One would think that you would not be able to fall asleep. That rather there would be a million questions to ask – that I’d not take my eyes off of him. That’s my normal persona. To this day, I don’t understand why I was able to just go with it as it happened. My only answer is that my soul and psyche didn’t need any of that. It just needed the love and to be with him.

It wasn’t one more day but it was an anniversary gift I will forever cherish.

“One more day, one more time

One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied

But then again, I know what I would do

Leave me wishing still for one more day with you

One more day”

-Diamond Rio