Facing the First Monday in March

I’m sitting on my couch staring out into the backyard, watching the birds move from feeder to feeder without a care in the world.

They don’t know what day it is.

They don’t know it’s the first Monday in March.

They don’t know that one year ago on the first Monday in March, my world split in two.

Tuesday will mark one year since I lost my son, Alex. That’s the official anniversary. But today — this first Monday — is the day my body remembers. It was a Monday when I got the worst news of my life. A Monday that began like any other ordinary day and ended with troopers at my door and me collapsed on the floor.

There are dates on a calendar, and then there are dates etched into your nervous system. Today is etched.

I’ve been dreading this stretch of days. Not just tomorrow. Today.

I’m doing my best to face it head on — like a buffalo walking straight into a storm instead of trying to outrun it. I don’t want to avoid this day. I don’t want to numb it. I want to meet it.

Tomorrow, at the exact time of his accident, I’ll be there. I made him a shield to place at the site. It didn’t turn out the way I pictured it in my head. It’s not perfect. But love isn’t perfect. It was made with my hands and built with intention. That’s what matters.

I’m planning to have lunch at one of his favorite places. Frozen pizza for dinner — one of his staples. These may seem like small things, but they are sacred in their own way. They’re pieces of him woven into a day I wish never existed.

Grief does something strange around anniversaries. It compresses time. It makes past and present overlap. I’m sitting here in my living room, but part of me is standing at the door again, hearing that knock. My mind wants to replay every detail — the text message, my response, the ordinary conversations that suddenly seem so meaningless in hindsight.

But right now, I’m looking at birds.

They’re hopping and fluttering and cracking seeds open. Life continuing without awareness of what this day means to me. There’s something grounding about that. In this moment, nothing is happening except birds eating and wind moving through trees.

One year ago today, I survived the unthinkable. I didn’t think I would. I didn’t think I could. But somehow, breath followed breath.

Tomorrow will hurt. Today already does.

But I am still here.

Still loving him.

Still honoring him.

Still showing up.

And maybe that’s what facing the storm really means.