Year of Firsts

I have been trying to figure out why I've been having a terrible couple of weeks.  There is no special dates that fall in late January or February, I'm not feeling that the winter has drug on too long and Dave and I have been keeping busy working on the golf benefit.  Why then am I in such a panic?  It came to me the other day when yet another person talked about getting past all the "Firsts" 

That comment scares me.  Is something magical going to happen when I finally get passed the first year?  Am I suppose to stop thinking of him or feeling blue?  Or are others going to be less tolerant of my talking about him or my moods just because I made it though all the firsts?  At a seminar for survivors last fall I heard numerous times that many people feel the second year is worse than the first!

I couldn't figure out why the statement bothers me so much until the other day when it occurred to me that I haven't been viewing things in "Firsts', I have been reliving the "Lasts".  The last time I spent a holiday with him, the last time we took him to the airport, the last time I hugged him, the last time I talked to him, and worst of all, this time last year he was still alive.  I think that is what frightens me, in a few short weeks that will all be gone, no more last year.  I look at the date each day and wonder where could a year have gone?

You may think that the lasts are harder to deal with, but I don't think so.  The date of the last time I talked to him is coming up.  It was a Sunday morning, as usual, he'd ask if he woke us up, and I would lie and tell him no.  While he was deployed we would each get on a phone because you never knew how long you would have to chat, ten or fifteen minutes is normal.  That commercial of the family all racing to the phone to talk to their son and brother is brutal to watch, it is too close to reality.  Anyway, that morning he didn't want to get off the phone, he just wanted to hear our voices.  We talked for two hours!!  This is a happy memory, it was a gift.

I'm not saying that the "Firsts" haven't been difficult, I just have chosen to focus on the "Lasts".  I don't think I would have changed anything about them, I don't really have any regrets.  I always ended our conversations with "I love you".  Maybe that is why they are easier, good memories are better than thinking about a future without my son.