Some closure

We didn’t plan the timing at all, but almost a year to the date after Colin’s burial, the gravestone showed up.

It actually came as a bit of a surprise. We knew that the cemetery staff wanted to do some landscaping at the site before they were going to let the stonemason do his work. But we also expected we’d get some warning. Instead, Christina got a call around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday to let us know that the headstone was in place. So, that’s that.

I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. I had to get downtown to a doctor’s visit for my flu shot. Then Wednesday we had errands to do. And Thursday my flu shot left me lying in bed. And then there’s been rain and the fact that I don’t like going to the grave all that much. But we’ll get there some time in the next few days. And then we’ll at least feel like this part of the nightmare is over (well, the bill still has to come).

It’s been one more step in what I can only call a process of normalization. The one bank finally sorted out his college fund (we split it between Emma and Noah). I realized I’m sleeping through the night without melatonin (then again, we’re on autumn break vacation here, so I’m also having a beer or two almost every night). A few nights ago we had a friend over and, to make space for five at the table, I moved around to the head of the table, which was always Colin’s spot. I don’t know if it had been by design or by lack of need for the space, but no one has sat in that space for the last year. It no longer felt taboo using it.

Of course, it’s not as if we’ve forgotten him. As Christina said a few days ago, we deal with him more as a memory now, not as a child. Both are equally powerful and take the right mindset to process. But it’s what we have. I take solace in the fact that I didn’t make a big deal out of it being one year since his burial. I actually might have forgotten the date, except for an email from a friend and that the one-year anniversary of the attack on the synagogue in Halle just happened, which I knew was just a day or so before his burial. It becomes a little more normal every day. And that, in itself, reminds me of how abnormal things remain.