Nine

Once more I can't believe another year has passed.

I feel like the speed of time has increased tenfold. It was only just yesterday that I sat down with little time to spare to collect my thoughts about what should've been your eight birthday? Yet, here we are, on the day that you should have turned nine.

Your little brother and little sister and growing up so fast. Too fast. Every day they are out and about, attending one thing or another. He plays football, handball and gymnastics. She takes dance and ballet classes, and gymnastics too, of course. I do the best I can to help them navigate everything. As does your mother. Sometimes I feel like it's my responsibility to help them find their calling in life, and master it. But I know that the best I can do is be their number one fan in whatever they are doing. So I try to limit my role to that. And the driving to and driving from. And packing bags, filling bottles, buying shoes, making sure nobody forgets their hairbands (I really need to learn how to braid hair, I'm sure if you were here I'd know it already) and a hundred other little things.

That's life right now. It passes at a hundred kilometres per hour. Not so much because I am so busy, I think, but because I am enjoying every moment of it. Even if it is hard sometimes, watching them grow, physically, mentally and socially, into something resembling complete human beings is more rewarding than anything else I have ever experienced. By an infinite margin.

Thinking about how you should have been even further down the line makes me sad. Angry, too. What would you have liked, I wonder? Would you have been a sports girl, like your brother, or musical dance girl, like your sister? Who of the kids I that would have been your classmates would have been your friends? I wondered that as we all went to an end of the school year party at the school tonight, and I saw your class perform a dance.

The weather was great. I overdressed, and felt a little scorched. Your sister did, too. We didn't have time for our usual celebration of your birthday on account of the school party. It made me feel a little guilty. But your sister and I visited your grave and lit a candle. We'll do the other rituals this weekend instead.

I know you won't mind.

Miss you.