I swear just when I think I have crawled out of the hole of grief, someone dumps a bucket loader of dirt and rocks back on me. Today was one of those days, in spades. It started out as a normal day, just like any other. I got ready for work, headed out the door and glanced at the calendar, and that’s when the first pile of rocks started to fall. It is that week, the week that contains the 17th of the month. The day that Connor formally left this world 21 months ago on Friday of this week. Although in 3 months he will be gone 2 years, 24 whole months, it still seems surreal to me. As if he could walk through the door at any moment.

That I could hear the distinctive sound that his semi-tied Chips made as he came through the front door. Of course after I heard the thumping of the bass that his stereo made as his beloved car came up the road. Those are sounds that I still hear in the recesses of my brain, almost as if I continue to hear them, he will somehow magically reappear.

Unfortunately my day went from bad to worse. I went to go get our company T-Shirts, with the new Connor Strong Logo on the sleeve. There it was in full color. The reminder that my guys will carry with them all year long, the full color reminder that he isn’t coming back.

No matter how hard I tried to turn off my brain, it just wouldn’t stop today. My father in laws house has been sold, Kyle is still trying to sell his powder blue mini van. In my yard sits 2 rally cars that are reminders of PBR-Powers Brothers Racing, and all the times they spent together. Racing and working on those cars together. Competing against each other to see who had the best times, they were always so close.

Then there is the constant reminder that I don’t want, the headstone that sits in Calvary Cemetery, the black granite stone with his name and his beloved baseballs on it. The stone with the short dash that marks the 17 years that he was on this earth. But that dash doesn’t represent how much he lived, loved and was loved. How much fun he had, how strong he was, how smart and ambitious he was. And most of all, how much he is missed.