It’s just another day, like the others but it’s not and I’m not sure I can do it. Days like Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays - they are all just days but we anoint them with different meanings because it’s the 25th, the fourth Thursday of November, the day we planted our flag on planet Earth. How special, or not, those days feel come from within us.

How then do I know what to do with this day and how it will make me feel? I want to celebrate a life but it becomes so very hard because along with those great memories comes a keen sense of loss and sadness. I simultaneously want to remember with all I can while also not spiraling into a bad place, one hard to get out of if dug too deep.

So, here is what I have decided. I will focus on how deeply I am shaped by her, good, bad or somewhere in between (where really most of exist).