Another Saturday

I wonder how long it will take for me to get to a Saturday without thinking, "It has been ______ weeks since I talked to Jason. Every week brings new challenges--this week we made a few big steps. We went to the football game Friday night, Tony's first at our new stadium. He agrees with me that it is a quality facility. It shouldn't remind us of Jason; he chose to focus on his horse, so he didn't play football after his freshman year, but for some reason I couldn't stop thinking of him. I saw friends of his, Allison's, and Carson's and they all looked at me with the same expression that I see everywhere I go. Today I walked in a 5K in Pink, Oklahoma. It was an American Cancer Society fund raiser, so I saw several people that I have known for years because of my volunteer work with ACS; it was the first time I have seen them since Jason's death. They were all so kind; I'm so fortunate to have such good friends in so many different realms--school, church, community. They have really blessed me this past month.
We continue to receive cards. Most of them we get now include letters or encouraging personal notes telling us of their relationship with Jason. It is so heartening to hear of the good memories they share with us. Two cards were from parents who have also lost a child. I already wrote about the Swaffords; the other couple we received a card from was from Kansas. They told us that their 13 year old daughter was killed in an ATV accident last spring. I don't mean to diminish anyone else's pain, but losing a child that still lives at home would be unbearable to me.
No matter what age the child is, the parents should not have to outlive them. My dad only lived nine months after Phyllis's death; he was 82 when she died, and she was 55. The grief was unbearable for him and, I think, contributed to his death. I know how much losing Jason has hurt us, but our day-to-day lives haven't been impacted as much as the people he lived around in Nebraska. He is always on my mind, but I didn't have to clean out his room, see evidence of his current life all around me. We are all going to face the holidays this year with a new reality. I went shopping for a few minutes after the walk. It's not even Halloween, but the stores are all putting out hints of Christmas. I am going to have to toughen up before Christmas. Right now I just feel sadness; how can I go from buying for three kids to buying for two?