Yarzheit IV

Avi and Ximena, you'd be four today. You're now older than I can imagine. You'd be preschoolers like your sister, but you'd have crossed the magic 36 month developmental threshold. Would you play soccer? Love martial arts? Dinosaurs or diggers or dress up? I can only imagine the conversations we'd have if you were here now.

We miss you with a more cutting ache these days, we're not far from where we were last year, still unendingly grateful to parent Miriam, and wondering if and how we will bring another sibling into our world. If anything the loss in not being able to raise you is amplified. Some days I want to scream "We had three!" to those who ask if we want another, if we've considered the range of options they assume is open to us.

But even without that irony, we miss you so. It amazes me how easily I can shift myself to that hospital room, to the hours before and after your birth and the minutes we had with you.

And so we take this moment each year to honor you and to grieve you. To light two candles with one match, to recite the Mourner's Kaddish, whose rhythm provides comfort in a place beyond reason. As long as those candles burn, you are with us.

This year Miriam will join us at the service in which your names are spoken. She's just started to ask questions about those missing from our circle, her second grandfather, her Papa's papa. By next year I'm sure she'll know that she had two beautiful brothers. We'll tell her how loved you are, and how much missed.

Your Mommy