It's engravable. The man at the funeral home never told us that, but it is. Had we known I'm not sure we would have opted to have anything engraved anyway. What was there to be written? His name? A single date? Beloved son? Beloved idealized version of the future? Besides, the anonymity of the small bronze box seems to be a more accurate representation of who he was and who he still is to us. We didn't know him, not really. Not the way we had thought we were going to have the chance to know him.
I look at that unimaginably small bronze box and it feels like it has always been a part of my life. I have to keep reminding myself that it has only been three and a half months. Three and a half months is nothing, yet it is almost half as long as he was here.
...and I can't help but wonder if people read this and think I should be over him by now...
I kept it for too long in my nightstand- I was too afraid to catch a glimpse of my own private Pandora's Box. Two nights ago, in the early morning I pulled it out along with one of his baby blankets and cried myself to sleep on the couch. That hasn't happened for awhile.
Leif woke up to find me asleep in the living room holding the blanket, used tissues scattered around me. So he made me pancakes. He is so wonderful.
I knew once it came out I couldn't put it away again. But where does it belong now? I stared at it for a long time on the mantel before I ended up moving it. While there it sat between the flea market bronze candlesticks, a postcard from Melissa, and a gift from Natalie from where in the world I can't remember- Three Wise Monkeys.
Now it is on a shelf that I inherited from my grandmother. It is on the same one as a framed engagement photograph and one of Leif's surround-sound speakers. Those shelves get so dusty. I'll have to dust the bronze box too, if I decide to leave it there.
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