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Vona Stewart

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Black Hen Books
Rigby, ID 83442

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About Vona

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soverymom

Sometimes I can’t believe any of it really happe

Have a holiday. No pressure from us to have a good

I couldn’t bring myself to decorate for the holi

Eric always rolled his eyes when, on birthdays, I’d say, “You’re not 11 yet! Not until 7:47pm!” A birthday was a birthday, and as far as he was concerned, you turned a year older the moment you opened your eyes that morning. He didn’t know what time he was born. But I do. I know everyone’s birth times. I also know timestamps are weird, man-made, arbitrary things; I know our planetary rotations around the sun (and even our solar system’s movements through the galaxy, and our galaxy’s movements through the universe) buck and strain against the harness of a calendar. We try to adapt with months that are shorter or longer than the next, with years that vary in length; with leap years and day light savings time. But still. I like to keep time. I know when Eric was born, and I know when he died. I know a year ago today, I had a turkey in the oven, and pies in the freezer. I know it is not yet his death time—as I write this, it is not yet, exactly a year. But our bodies keep score, and our cells know these days and minutes are significant whether or not they are the exact moment he breathed his last breath. We went to bed last night with tears drying on our cheeks. We’d written our letters, drawn our pictures, folded our messages into little paper boats. We had stayed up late, sharing some of our favorite memories about him. We chose to discuss the light-hearted human things we love and miss; & talked less about the death-day scenes to which our minds were inexorably flashing back. We marked the moment the clock struck midnight. “It’s today,” I said, wiping my eyes. “We made it,” Ben added before giving me a hug. I told them how proud I was of us for surviving the impossible. This morning, we set our little boats afloat. I cried thinking of the words we had written. My mama’s heart wanted to snatch my babies’ boats back to preserve and save them. But there was something appropriately heart-wrenching watching our love notes sail away. We knew they would eventually sink and dissolve and return to the earth. That was both beautiful and painful. Thank you all, for marking time with us. For bearing witness to our loss and our little paper boats.

Dear Eric, Time used to make sense. Once upon

Eric, T minus 11 days to the “year time” of

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