June is hard.

June is hard. I've said that several times on Facebook and Twitter, but haven't been able to put a lot of words down on paper (or screen). Every day is a reminder of how hard LAST June was. But as hard as that month in the ICU was, at least Mitchell was there. We had hope. We never gave up hope.

I have tried very hard not to spend this month reliving last year. I haven't read through the CaringBridge entries day by day, although I've read a couple of them... and today's was particularly brutal. I've been a lot more angry and frustrated than sad this month.

Here's some of the tricky parts of my grief. Obviously, he isn't here, and I miss him. We miss him. We miss our family the way it was, the way it is supposed to be. But then silly little things that seem not of much importance blow me up:

Interns. My office has hired two high school interns for this summer, through a program that I had hoped Mitchell would be hired through. One of the interns is a girl who is a rising senior at Hume Fogg, like Mitchell is supposed to be this summer. The other is a tall, skinny, blond boy, also a rising senior, who has a preppy style of dress with a fondness for bow ties. Every time I look at him, I see Mitchell. I see him doing the things we had hoped Mitchell would be doing this summer. I try not to wonder why it was Mitchell, not some other kid, or why it had to be any of these kids.

Carpools. I drive Carson to camp. I pick Carson up at camp. I arrange for friends to pick up Carson from Vacation Bible School and entertain him in the afternoons afterwards. I rage and scream inside because Mitchell should be doing this! This was supposed to be the time where Mitchell helped out with driving around! Instead, his car sits in our driveway; it hasn't been driven in over a year.

News. The news is filled with tragedy and evil. My heart breaks for every single Orlando mother who had to receive a terrible phone call. My heart breaks for a Nebraska family on vacation at the Happiest Place on Earth who witnessed an unspeakable tragedy. As hard as my grief is, how much harder must it be when your grief is national news? And I wonder why good kids, kids with a bright future, kids like Mitchell, have to leave us, while evil continues on in others, who then in turn destroy other lives, other families.

Chores. I've been mowing the yard the last couple of weeks, doing what Mitchell had taken over a couple of years ago, and I know Carson will pick up the slack probably next year. And every time I ask Carson to do some chores -- take out the trash, empty the dishwasher, laundry... I remember "halving" chores in the past. They would jokingly argue that "I have to do everything." It isn't as funny when Carson says it now.

Hockey. Stupid hockey. Carson was not selected to be a part of the team that he has been a part of for the past few seasons, and it was upsetting to all of us. Mitchell would have had the exact right thing to say, because he had been there... not picked for a team he wanted to make, at this exact age. That turned out to be the best season ever for him, for us; the season where we made new friends who have turned out to be best friends -- both for him and for us. But it has been hard to have Carson deal with sadness over that, when he has experienced about as much sadness as any 12 year old should have, ever. At the same time, we say "worse things have happened," because they have.

School. We should be getting ready for Mitchell's senior year of high school, and all the great things that go along with that! I watch his friends who just graduated and who are getting ready to be seniors, and their thinking about college, and their graduation parties, and their plans to play hockey, and quite simply --their presence, their present, their now, their future.

Instead, I am looking at a date on the calendar next week that looms over me like a shadow. I'm a little stuck right now. June is hard.