3 Years

While we were away in Sydney and Canberra, it was the anniversary of Noah's death, or Angel Day as we like to call it.   I had been thinking that it was coming up, but dates don't really mean much to me anymore.  For the first year I always knew when the 8th or 26th was coming up, and that it was another month since Aaron or Noah passed away, but after that I stopped thinking about it. 

Over the last couple of months I had been thinking that it was almost October, and that it would then be three years since Noah passed away, but I actually didn't think about it during the weeks leading up to it.
I probably would've gone past the day without realising what the date was, except that a friend asked me how I was going, leading up to the date.   I told her that I hadn't even thought about it, but I was glad that we were going to be away for it.

It turned out that we were in Canberra on the 8th, and I almost forgot again what the date was, but realised the night before when I was talking to my cousin Kristen about how I had been going lately.   I told her that it has taken almost three years to start to feel on top of things again, and it then hit me that the following day was Noah's 'Angel Day'.

On the day we were really busy visiting the Mint, The War Memorial and Questacon so I didn't really have time to think about it a lot.   It was lovely to get lots of messages throughout the day from lots of different people.  My Mum let some balloons off on the beach, and our friend Alison went to the cemetery to let some balloons off.

Our friend Di, who was one of Noah's carers since he was two, and also his aide at school, went to school to visit his memorial garden.  It's looks so pretty at this time of the year. 

 I asked Kristen where we could get some helium balloons so we could let them off, and she said she would organise it.   It was lovely to go and let them off with them later that evening.
When we got home from Sydney there were some lovely packages and cards at our front door.  We love our new monkey (because we always called Noah 'monkey') and the other package was very clever with a drink to drown our sorrows, tissues to dry our tears, a banana for our cheeky monkey, chocolates to bring us comfort and glow bands to lighten our day. 

 

Often my thoughts are that Aaron isn't here, and that actually makes me angry, because I feel like it's so unfair on Noah that our grief and thoughts of missing him were taken away in many ways, because Aaron passed away so soon after he did.

I wonder what it would've been like if we were able to just grieve for Noah, and although I wish that he never had to pass away, I wish we had the opportunity to grieve just for him.  I have no doubt that Noah wouldn't want us to be sad, but feel like we didn't even really have the chance to grieve for him properly. 

It's crazy to think that it has already been three years. I hate that it's been three years, because three years sounds like such a long time.    I feel like when I say 'my son passed away three years ago', it doesn't explain the sadness and emptiness we still feel.  We are definitely coping better, but we are not the same people we used to be, and never will be. 

Even though the date doesn't mean as much to me anymore, I still miss him every single day. It's getting harder to remember what life was like when he was here - all the meds, tube feeds, physio therapy, lifting him into his wheelchair, suctioning, and dressing him in his splints every day, but we will never forget how much love he gave us and how he made us feel when we were around him, even though he never spoke one word.