You should be here.

I sit with my bare legs against the sand, my toes running back and forth through that same sand. I watch our little boys huddle together in the sand with their attention fully on what is in front of them. Crabs. They’ve been catching them in the sand.

We are at the beach. The ocean is beautiful. The moon is out. Their tummies are full of food from the buffet where they got to choose whatever they wanted. I am calm and I look from them to the moon in the sky. It is a beautiful night. I feel peaceful.

I have not had to prepare any food, clean up, or do any of the normal “MOMing” things. I just showed up with the boys. A feat in an of itself was heroic, but that’s why I chose an all-inclusive resort. I needed to get away and it was time. Time to step into the next part. I can plan, prepare and travel with my boys. I can do it.

I can pretend for a moment that we’re a normal family who can travel and live life the way it’s meant to be lived, engaging in the activities a family wants. I haven’t been able to do that for 2 years. Anything beyond survival has been too monumental on its own.

Air travel, foreign country, packing, planning… all of that, too much. But I craved the ocean, the sand and a little bit of a change. Thanksgiving was coming and the last thing I wanted to do was stay home and be thankful for what I have. Though I am thankful.

I didn’t want to again feel the difference of yet another holiday. “No-thanks, Thanksgiving this year. No thanks to the traditional part of Thanksgiving, just get me out of here… so I did. And now in this moment, I think, as I watch our boys engage in just the magic I was hoping they would find here.

I saw the moment I had dreamed of become a reality in the bliss of nothing but a scattering crab, the glow of the moonlight and the subtle rhythm of the waves crashing just below us I enjoyed the moment. I smiled in this bliss and the next thought was, “you should be here.”

And Grant, he should. But no, he’s not. It’s just me. Just me enjoying the moment. Just me to plan how, when and why we got here. Just me to protect them. Just me to teach them. Just me to be here watching with a smile on my face and gratitude in my heart that I am here, and a sadness that it is, just me.

And now, it’s a sadness I’m so familiar with, knowing that it doesn’t go away. It doesn’t leave just me and no matter where I go, it follows. It feels oddly comforting in the familiarity of what is truly the saddest moment of my life in every moment of joy, happiness, and anything else I experience.

As I watch the boys and their sounds of discovery and happiness, I wonder, do they feel this missing piece too? Or is it just me? I think it’s just me. There are moments they remember, but those seem far more fleeting than the moments they don’t. I’m grateful. Yet, my experience is just the opposite.

The moments of joy when I really don’t feel sad, are far more fleeting than the moments that my new constant companion is there to remind me. So I just look at them and smile again, to feel more into the happiness that I feel. I am here to feel that.

I am here and that I did this big thing and I can do it. It’s all such a blessing and I still think to Grant; you Grant, somewhere up in that moonlit sky, “you should be here.”