20

The day after the beautiful and heartbreaking memorial for Young James, we went to the beach.

As I have mentioned. And it was beautiful.

And it just kept getting more beautiful . . .

. . . and more beautiful . . .

. . . and more beautiful.

And on the other side of the dunes . . . 

. . . the moon was a-rising.

It was so raw and so fresh and so new and we didn't know what we were doing in those days. So the beauty we found that day was comforting and exhilarating. 

We knew it was going to be hard going forward, but we thought maybe the worst was behind us . . .

. . . but we were wrong.

Wednesday is February Twenty-Seventh -- that is a hard birthday to memorize when you're a kid -- and James will not be here to celebrate it. He will not celebrate turning 20.

Celebrate is a big word, and February Twenty-Seventh is going to be brutal for Jacquie and for Clara and for the rest of us, but maybe we can find something through the grief to celebrate.

We can celebrate that we had him, as short a time as it was. We can celebrate that he brought the rest of us all together in one place, a whole lot of beautiful people in one beautiful city.

And we can celebrate Jacquie's and Clara's Tribes, the beautiful people who live in San Diego and are taking such good care of our girls.

On Wednesday, we can celebrate that we did have him, fleetingly.

We can celebrate our boy.