Today Is What “Different” Looks Like

For the better part of a year, I noticed my body before I noticed the calendar.

The 5th and 6th of every month seemed to arrive in my nervous system before they arrived on the page. I would feel tired. Unmotivated. Quiet. Sometimes I would take naps without realizing why. My body remembered what my mind hadn’t yet acknowledged.

Today was different.

It wasn’t until later in the day that I realized it had been a year and three months since my father passed away.

That surprised me.

Not because I forgot him.

Because grief has changed.

There was a time when the 5th and 6th were filled almost entirely with sadness. They were heavy with the memory of loss. Today, they were filled with ordinary moments that quietly reminded me of him.

My younger son is home from college, and I caught myself thinking about how happy my father would have been to see him and to ask him when is the season starting.

My older son recently worked with a transportation company for a local event, and my immediate thought was, “My father would have loved the vehicle my son drove over the weekend.” He would have wanted to sit in it. He would have looked around and smiled. It would have become one of those ordinary moments that somehow became unforgettable.

I realized something today.

I’m not forgetting my father.

I’m remembering him differently.

For a while, I thought healing meant the sadness would disappear.

Now I think healing means the memories become larger than the moment of loss.

Instead of remembering the day he died, I’m remembering the way he lived.

The things he enjoyed.

The moments he would have loved.

The conversations we would have had.

The laughter we would have shared.

Today is what “different” looks like.

Not less love.

Not less grief.

Just a different relationship with both.

I still miss my father.

I always will.

But today, instead of my heart breaking over the date, it smiled over the man.

And maybe…

just maybe…

that’s part of healing too.