The Firsts,

MyFella has a friend who has liked to tell him that "all the firsts will be hard." It's a nice idea, really, it makes sense, I guess, that the first will be the hardest. Except it isn't. Unless you want to call it the First Third Thursday in September, the first second Monday of September, the first day of the month, the last day of the month, you get it? Get where I'm going. First isn't the hardest when every single day is hard. Except then a "first" came along. The first vacation we tried to take without Jamie. The first birthday that came along without Jamie. All the places Jamie would be, all the smiles on his face, and he's not there. He didn't pack a bag. Run out to the car. Tell us he'd go, "I'll go." He didn't start pointing to the snack bag before we even left or the Cokes. He wasn't in the car for us to ask him if he needed to pee, or to hold his hand and watch his step over different sidewalks and thresholds, or work to make his bedding comfortable so he would sleep in a different places. He wasn't there to laugh at getting cake when we put one in the oven, or to help pass the presents over that he would try to keep for himself, which was the fun of asking him to pass them. Just when I thought we couldn't possibly be any more miserable, a damned first came along and proved me wrong.