my last first anniversary

I think today has to be considered my last first anniversary on my grief journey. It is leap day, and on February 29, 2004, four of our good friends had come out to see us. Kurt and Joanna were two of Becky's best friends from high school, and they remained good friends for the rest of Becky's life.

Kurt went to Georgetown, and while there met an exchange student from Scotland, and skipping ahead rather quickly, ended up married and living in England by the turn of the millineum. And so it was (and is) a super-rare treat to get to see him and his bride. But they were back in Texas, and made the trip out to see us, and since they were, Joanna and Burt came, too. And we had a wonderful time. A picture of the seven of us that day has stayed on my bookshelf ever since.

I look at it now, and it should have been so clear that things weren't going well. Becky's body is already misshapen from the cancer and its treatment. Her right shoulder sagged well below her left shoulder because cancer had deflated most of her right lung. And yet the next two weeks would be good ones, with Katie's cousin coming out to visit, a birthday party, and a trip to the zoo in Tyler that was the last unfettered happy memory of our lives together.

And yet, I remember sitting in the car the next morning after having breakfast with this motley collection. I knew deep in my soul it was the last time Becky and Kurt would see each other. It was the only time in that entire cancer journey I felt like something was happening for the last time. Not on birthdays or Christmases or whatever. But that morning, it hit me like a truck.

I am exhausted today, whether by memories of last leap day, the extra hours at work which are numbingly unproductive, or the pressures on family life that come from working 20 extra hours per week. Probably it is the combination of all of them.