March 17 is for Remembering Sunil

Today is March 17 here. In NY, in the pertinent place I guess, it is still March 16. It is still Drew's birthday. It is still the day before our lives changed forever. But in New Zealand, it's St. Patrick's day.

People are traipsing around the streets already - 12:30 in the afternoon, and I sit here in bed trying to reconcile what to do with this day.

The confusion of these dates is getting the better of me. Am I supposed to be sad now? Tomorrow? March 17 as a universal reminder sucks to be quite honest. Happy people everywhere, big MARCH 17 strewn across banners everywhere, and all I want to do is cry.

Thinking about which day (my March 17 or yours) to 'mourn' has me wondering whether mourning is the right way to handle this. I can't help but let this date bring back memories of that late night phone call, of uncontrollable tears, of the worst week of my life to date.

But earmarking it to this day in the confusion of it still being March 16 at home makes me think that maybe picking a date to be 'sad' isn't the right approach. . . Annie & Karen must be under the same confusion as I today.

I guess all I can do is use these next days, be it one or two, to try not to be sad - to try to forget the horrors of that night, that week, and try to just use it as a remembrance. Maybe I can get the March 17 signs everywhere that will forever connect to Sunil to be a way that I have him close to me as this day approaches.

It is just his style to have left this earth on a day where so many people are out there celebrating life. Maybe he wanted it to be really really difficult for us to be sad this day.

Well Sunil, I hope I can eventually smile on this date. For now it is just too painful. But I will try.

My start is to say that for me, as I begin my New Zealand March 17, I will sit and remember our moments in the courtyard, your Sunil hugs, our endless phone conversations, that voice that was the one I went to with things I couldn't talk to anyone else about - the brother I had never had. I'll try to honor the lives we talked about leading - and remember those things this day.

Oh. And it figures. We've had 40 degree weather with high winds and rain the last week. BUT today in Christchurch New Zealand - its 86 and sunny. Yes babe, I know you are here!