“If wishes were fishes, we’d all have fishes to fry.” I can remember my Mom saying that to me whenever I said something like, “I wish I was thinner, or I wish I had a better car, or I wish I was better at….”. All wishes that really seem silly and kind of pointless now.

Now if I had a Genie in a bottle and I had 3 wishes I know exactly what I would wish for. That the events of November 6th 2017 never occurred. That we didn’t spend 12 days in the Baystate PICU watching our lives come unraveled and that Connor was still here. Sleeping in the room across the hall from us, and spending every available moment with Jordan. But wishes aren’t fishes and no matter how many times I make those wishes, I still wake up trapped in this terrible nightmare.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t have better days where I can spend time smiling or laughing or being silly about something. Not every minute of every 24 hours is full of mind numbing grief, but it is always niggling in the background.

I’ve learned that is what grief is, some days it is all consuming and nothing can push it to the background. Those are the bad days, the days that I have learned that waterproof makeup does not mean tear proof, and that I look like hell when I ugly cry. Other days I can compartmentalize it, put it in a tidy little box, and go about my day. Memories of his silliness or his romantic side, or even the defiant side he had with me, will make me smile and sometimes laugh. Those are good days, days where I embrace all the fantastic things about him, without confronting the truth that he is GONE!

Maybe I’m living in a fairy tale, maybe I really haven’t come to terms with how his death has rocked my world. Maybe someday the grief will be so bad that I will spend a month in bed in a depression I can’t climb out of. I like to think that I have worked my way through that. I know that the amazing friends, family and community members I have would come and sit with me, and even drag my ass out, because they are my village. They were there in the beginning and they are still here. Because my village is full of amazing people that have walked beside me through this journey. Wished these same wishes and held onto this same hope.