52 Thursdays Later. . . .

525,600 minutes ago (give or take). . . .

I was getting ready for a nap. By the pool. After gorging myself on nachos and a midday pina colada. I had reached that point in the vacation where I was finally settling in, getting acclimated to the days filled with, well, not much more than food and alcohol. When boredom suddenly didn't seem like such a bad thing, and I began wishing I could stay longer.

525,600 minutes ago (more or less). . . .

The "before." When deliciously petty annoyances bothered me, like a passing cloud. Or having to dig under my beach chair to find my phone in my bag so I could check the time, for no reason other than to gauge how long I could nap before my next cocktail.

It's coming up on 525,600 minutes of "after." After the unimaginable. The "there's no good way to tell you this" text, from my friend. Only hours after the "here we are drinking Lemoncello's somewhere near the South Pole" text, from the same friend. There is no good way, though I suppose it was just as good a way as any for my friend to tell me her son, a child I had known for almost all of his twenty-seven years, was dead.

The "after." I called her and I begged her to tell me I had misread something. The pina colada. The heat. It must have gotten to me. But it hadn't. So why was I in such a fog?

The immediate "after," I circled. I tried to do what I needed to do: change flights, pack, drink water, breathe. Call my children, explain to them the inexplicable. "There's no good way to tell you this...." I remember walking around that evening, resenting everyone, wanting desperately to return to all that was "before."

It's been 525,600 minutes (almost). . . .

What a difference a year makes, or so I had always thought. The "firsts" have all been checked off, which means only that we brace ourselves for the "seconds." It's not as raw, I suppose, but still, I am stunned. There was no good way to tell me then, and there is no good way to tell me now.

Yesterday, I met my friend at the cemetery, for the second time in the 525,600 minutes or so since we buried Adam on the most ugly winter day when the sky opened up and sobbed freezing rain. She came with her usual supplies -- a cup of coffee for her, a cup of coffee for Adam. Nothing for me, but I gave her a pass. And, this time, she came with a laminated proof of what Adam's tombstone will look like when she gets around to ordering it and some massive bright green doohickeys so we could jerry rig it to the marker. We picked dried leaves off his grave. Dusted things off. We did what mothers do.

She wondered why she couldn't cry. Why cry when you still can't believe it's true, so many hundreds of thousands of minutes later. I yelled at him, the way I did the last time, for not being able to outsmart fate, even though he was so ridiculously smart. I caught him up on stuff, in my head, on all the crazy shit he's missed this year, in the year since I left "before" behind.

Four seasons down, four more until we brace ourselves for the "thirds." A half million minutes, give or take. My friend will bring the coffee. All I got is a shoulder, if she needs one.