Yesterday marked the beginning of a three-week period that I have been quietly dreading for some time now. Easter weekend, one year ago, was the last weekend we spent with Justin.
That Saturday we went to a dinosaur park in the Jura and then took the kids for lunch at Burger King, or as Ben likes to call it, the King of Burgers. It was a lovely day.
Sunday was Easter and we went to the Parc des Bastions with some close family friends. The moms hid Easter treats while the dads distracted the kids, and then after the kids had run around finding their surprises, we sat on the grass and drank Clairette de Die. It was a lovely day.
That Monday morning Justin woke up early and got ready to go to the airport. I told him that if he really wanted me to, I could wake up the kids and we would drive him to the airport. He laughingly told me to stay in bed, so I did. I kissed him goodbye and he left. That was the last time I saw him.
Nineteen days later Betty-Lynn came to my office and told me “Justin passed away last night.” Right at that moment my life fractured into a before and and after, with the time Justin was in Tanzania existing as a kind of interstitial period between the two. That final weekend we spent together as a family, in that city I love so well, remains as my last shiny memory of that glorious before.
I have made it through the first “anniversary” of that weekend. In nineteen days I will make it through the first “anniversary” of his death.
I have survived this. For now, that is enough.