For our friends

Today is the 30th. The 30th is always hard. I guess it always will be. It has been four months since we were told there was nothing that the best doctors in the world could do for Mitchell. I don't guess I will ever understand in this life how that is possible -- how in a month a kid -- a perfectly healthy (seemingly so, anyway) kid -- can go from playing competitive hockey at a high level to dying of heart failure. On May 30, he was skating to make a team. On June 30, we watched him die. We had to let him go. How in the world?! And how in the world do I learn to live without him?

There are so many things I want to tell my "mom friends", and the moms of his friends. I watch you on Facebook. I see you post their senior pictures, read your posts about taking the stress of taking the ACT and applying to college, check the scores of your hockey games. I remember that worry and stress, and now it seems like such a blessing, because it means your kid has a present and a future. I get frustrated with you when you get upset about thinking about them going off to college or to play hockey. I want to shake you and tell you to ENJOY it, enjoy them, be proud of them. Yes, miss them, but you can text them or call them or use Skype or Facetime or FASTHockey to see what they are up to. I won't ever get to see Mitchell play hockey, or cry at graduation, or help him pack for college, or cry at his wedding. Instead, I get to cry every day because none of those things are going to happen. I told someone yesterday that I feel like everyone else's lives are moving on, when mine has just stopped. I am frozen in time in June 2015. It is hard for me to process anything that has happened after that date.

And, to Mitchell's friends: I worry about you kids, especially the ones who were closest to Mitchell at school, or on his team. I know how empty my house and car feels when we should be rushing around getting ready for school, or running to practice, or packing for a hockey weekend. But I don't know how empty it feels to sit in a class when he should be next to you cutting up, or what it feels like to sit on the bench before a game without him, or when you look to make a pass and he isn't there, or to get into a skirmish on the ice because you know he has your back. I do know what it is like to pick up the phone to text him something you know he would laugh at, and then just put it back down. But I also know that he would want you all to keep going. Keep studying, apply to that great college. Keep playing, and play with all your heart. Keep laughing, and tell those funny stories about the time there were three of you in the penalty box; or the time he walked into a sign downtown because he was taller than everyone else in middle school; or the smoke-bomb experiment under the bridge (what could have gone wrong there?!); or the party where the police got called to a midnight football game; or the time a hockey mom texted him because she thought it was somebody else. It is okay to miss him and be sad. I know I am. But it is okay to talk about him, too, and it is okay to laugh!

Three boys in the box. You know who you are!

We'll never "get over it". All we can do is be kind to ourselves, and be kind to others.

People keep asking me "is there anything we can do?" and there isn't, other than what you are doing -- pray for us, and remember him. And try to smile when you do, even if it is through tears.