525,600 Minutes. How do you measure a year in the life? I’m sure many are familiar with this song from Rent. How do you measure a year? 12 months, 365 days, 88,330 hours, 525,600 minutes. And actually, this year has been longer, by a day, by 24 hours, by 1,440 minutes. 527,040 minutes without my girl, my world, my reason for being. 527,040 minutes filled with pain, etched with sorry, heartache, and despair.
A lot can happen in a year. On the one hand, this year has dragged and dragged. Each day longer than the next, looking forward each day to bedtime so I can go to sleep once again and not have to think or feel. I look back at this year and cannot imagine doing this another 40 or more times. It has been excruciating, with so many triggers and landmines coming at me day in and day out. Constant reminders of what we had, what we lost, what we will never have. Lost milestones, missed experiences. There was so much more that she wanted to do. So much more that we wanted to do. And this year is just a tiny fraction of what we have to endure for the rest of our lives. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that it has been a year already. Somehow, I survived. I made it. Mind you, I don’t view that as a positive. Survival is exactly how it sounds. Getting by, living, getting through each day, going through the motions. I don’t feel any sense of accomplishment or peace or comfort in having made it through the first year. There is no joy, no contentment. No relief that I survived the first year. All I feel is dread, looming over me. Of what life continues to look like moving forward. Of how much more we will continue to miss out on. Of how much I miss Ariella and will continue to miss Ariella. When she died she left a hole that can never be filled, no matter how many years, days, or minutes. As time goes on we will face more milestones and more experiences that she should have had. At Ariella’s unveiling the rabbi mentioned how we made it through all the firsts. The first holidays, the first birthday, the first of everything after her death. Is that supposed to be some kind of relief? I don’t think it gets any easier moving forward. In fact, I think it is going to get harder.
So how do I measure this past year? In tears, in breakdowns, in heartache, in sleepless nights. In rainbows, in butterflies, in searching for signs. In deaths of children, in funerals, in celebrations of life. In bears, in fundraisers, in grief, in memories of a better life. Measured in loneliness, isolation, futility, and despair. In quarantine, in masks, in days working from home, in rolls of toilet paper. Measured in loss of some friends and family, but also in gains of new friends and supports. But mostly, in missing. In missing Ariella. In missing her beautiful smile and infectious laugh. In missing her eye rolls and bear hugs. In missing our game nights and movie nights, sleepovers and girl trips to New York. In missing her hand in mind, her voice, her pranks, her exuberance. In missing watching her dance, watching her grow, watching her become more independent. In missing helping her with her homework, doing crafts, cooking for her, driving her all over. Along with the missing, is wondering. Wondering what she would be doing right now. Wondering how she would handle the quarantine (not well, I imagine). Wondering what book she would read, what project she would start, what craft she would create. Wondering what her hair would look like now, how tall she would be, what she would be learning in school. That’s what this year has been. 572,040 minutes of sadness and missing and wondering.
I can’t forget love. As the song goes, “measure your life in love”. There has been so much love this year. The love David and I and all our family and friends have for Ariella. The love that has been expressed for Ariella. The love that has been shown to us, not just this year, but since 2017, when Ariella was diagnosed. The love that continues to surround us even though we don’t always show it in return. The love doesn’t make it better. It doesn’t make up for the missing and the wondering. But it does remind me that no matter how alone I feel, there is always someone there.
So here we go with the next 525,600 minutes.
