Nora McInerny

I haven't moved on, and I hate that phrase so much, and I understand why other people do, because what it says is that Aaron's life and death and love are just moments that I can leave behind me and that I probably should.

And when I talk about Aaron, I slip so easily into the present tense, and I've always thought that made me weird.

And then I notice that everybody does it.

And it's not because we are in denial or because we're forgetful, it's because the people we love who we've lost are still so present for us.

So when I say, oh, Aaron is, it's because Aaron still is.

And it's not in the way that he was before, which was much better, and it's not in the way that churchy people tried to tell me that he would be.

It's just that he's indelible, and so he's present for me.

Here, he's present for me in the work that I do, in the child that we had together, in these three other children I'm raising who never met him, who shared none of his DNA, but who are only in my life because I had Aaron and because I lost Aaron.

He's present in my marriage to Matthew because Aaron's life and love and death made me the person that Matthew wanted to marry, so I have not moved on.

From Aaron, I've moved forward with him.

We spread Aaron's ashes in his favorite river in Minnesota, and when the bag was empty, because when you're cremated, you fit into a plastic bag, there were still ashes stuck to my fingers.

And I could have just put my hands in the water and rinsed them, but instead, I licked my hands clean because I was so afraid of losing more than I had already lost, and I was so desperate to make sure that he would always be a part of me,

But of course he would be.

Because when you watch your person fill himself with poison for three years just so he can stay alive a little bit longer with you that stays with you,

When you watch him fade from the healthy person he was the night you met to nothing that stays with you.

When you watch your son, who isn't even two years old yet, walk up to his father's bed on the last day of his life like he knows what's coming in a few hours and say, I love you, all done, bye-bye.

That stays with you.

Just like when you fall in love, finally, like really fall in love with someone who gets you and sees you, and you even see, oh my God, I've been wrong this entire time.

Love is not a contest or a reality show.

It's so quiet.