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Yesterday was December 30. There it is again, the 30th. February may become my favorite month, since it won't ever have one of those days. Yesterday marked six months. Honestly, I didn't think about that fact until this morning, seeing as how all day yesterday I thought it was the 29th, and was distracted by a flat tire and Mike spending the whole day in the ER with dehydration and what we thought was norovirus but turned out to be something else. He is recovering, slowly. Stress is getting to all of us.

So here we are, the 30th and now the 31st of December. New Year's Eve. My great-grandmother's birthday. She would have been 106 this year! She lived to see Mitchell, and one of our treasured photographs is of our five generations together. He kept a framed copy of that photo in his room for a long time.

I have said to several people that I can't wait for this year to be OVER. But I am also somewhat apprehensive about facing a new year. 2016 will be a year Mitchell will never see. As long as I held on to 2015, it seemed like because he was alive THIS year, I still had him here in a way. It feels like tomorrow will be the start of something different. I don't know how to face a new year, how to face a lifetime, without him.

The "firsts" are all hard: the first time back to the rink; the first time driving past Hume-Fogg (I still haven't been inside); the first Predators game; the first Thanksgiving; the first Christmas. We still have more "firsts" to go: his birthday is in January; first Mother's Day; first Father's Day (which will be doubly rough since we were in the hospital last Father's Day)...

My resolutions for the New Year include trying to LIVE the way he would want us to: Trying to spread a little kindness, laugh some more, travel a lot, watch some hockey (okay, he would say play some hockey, but I'm not doing that!), read good books, be outside. Pick one or more of those and join me as we #playformitch (however that translates to your life).

(New Year's Eve 2014, with Sophie and Mr. Terry)