Missing Pieces

I decided to plagiarize this topic from a good friend.

I am missing pieces from the days following the passing of my Grandmother. We were expecting son #1 in less than a week when we got the phone call that she was gone. When you are that close to delivery, you should not go 3 hours away from your doctor and there was no way that I was going to leave my very pregnant wife at home alone. So we stayed put and grieved, but it was not the same. When you are around family and fiends, when you can see their faces, when you can give that hug and cry on a shoulder, when you can receive the condolences of others and when you can physically lift the casket and help walk it to the grave your grief changes. Those who know me know that I do not dwell on the negative and I am not writing about this to try to fill a deep void in my life. I am merely identifying some missing pieces to my life that I will never have the opportunity to find. The space they would have occupied was filled with quiet reflection, some tears on my pillow, and eventually (7 days past the due date) the most joyous day that I had known to that point (still second to none, but now in a tie with the day son #2 was born). Even so, the pieces are still missing and there is no going back to find them. Perhaps some day I will come to understand this time in a different way. Perhaps not. Either way, it does not change my love for my Grandmother and my love for my wife and children. Those pieces are the ones that matter most and they are carved into the very fabric of my being.