Chris will be turning sixty-one on January 31, but I don’t think he’s celebrating birthdays in heaven. Twenty-four years after his death, I still pause on this day and wonder if his baby face would have aged well, if his outdoor, labor intensive job would have impaired his joints or wrecked his back? I think that he would be nearing retirement and ponder what our life together would look like now.
Thoughts of Chris always intermingle with melancholy over the fact that he is not here to celebrate his birthday, and he hasn’t been since he turned thirty-six. He has missed a lot of life with us, with the family and friends whose lives were intimately connected with his. Most of all, he has missed out on our son Matthew’s life.
Along with Chris’ birthday there is another important thing that happened on January 31, 1988. Matthew (whose name means…
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