She was a beautiful black lab that we got soon before we got married. She played with and protected our girls. Six years ago today she lay down in the hallway outside Elena’s door.

They say that dogs know.

“Daddy, who’s they?”

“I don’t know baby. Just they. You know, some people.”

In my mind Elena snaps her fingers in both hands at once. She tips back a little sideways with her left hip slightly raised. She holds her fingers like mock revolvers. Index fingers pointed at me. Thumbs up in the air. Remaining fingers curled in.

“Got it, ” she says winking. “Dogs just know.”

I’ve been wondering why things feel harder to deal with this year than the past few. I think it’s because the days of the week are lining up the same way they did it in 2006.

President’s Day Monday was on February 20th then as now. That afternoon Kim took Elena to the doctor. The doctor said nothing was wrong and sent her home. As it turns out, the doctor was probably right. Monday afternoon nothing was wrong.

The next day was Tuesday February 21. Same as this year. Six years ago yesterday Elena went to school along with Maggie. I walked them both. Elena had a great day at school. She and her best friend planned their birthday celebrations. Two days apart and a little over a week away.

Wednesday morning February 22 began with Tara laying outside Elena’s door. Elena found the dollar the tooth fairy left for her for her first missing tooth ever. The perfect dollar.

Elena threw up so we kept her home. She’d just been to the doctor – she was fine. Just something kids got. She’d stay home a day then she’d be fine. If not, we’d take her to the doctor that afternoon.

Tara wasn’t herself all day. She watched over Elena and stayed close all day. When I let Tara outside, she came right back in.

Dogs just know.

We got Tara as a puppy just before we got married. Kim’s dad was helping us get our new house ready to move into. Kim stopped by to help as well. Kim asked if I wanted a dog. I said no, not yet. It turned out that the dog — our dog — needed to be picked up in the next few days.

We signed up for an obedience class. Those classes are as much about training the owner as they are about training the dog. Tara graduated easily. Kim and I barely passed.

Over the years Tara evolved into a wonderful dog who did well with other dogs and people.

So many great moments.

On Kim and my first wedding anniversary I picked up a picnic dinner from our favorite Chinese restaurant, put a twenty foot leash on Tara, and went to pick Kim up from work.

I knew she’d be free. I’d arranged weeks ahead with her supervisor to write fictitious patients on Kim’s schedule. We made up people with problems that would be difficult to diagnose and treat. Kim had looked at her schedule the day before and told me she wouldn’t be home til late.

Tara and I picked her up at 3:30. We knew she’d be free then. We drove out to property that Case Western Reserve University Owned out in the country and had a wonderful picnic. Just the three of us.

Tara was never a substitute for children but weaknesses in out resolve and technique as pet owners certainly foreshadowed mistakes we would make as parents.

Tara welcomed Maggie into our house and a year and a half later she welcomed Elena too.

“Welcomed, daddy? Really?”

“I don’t know, Elena. What would you be turning next week? Thirteen? I may not be remembering whether or not she welcomed you. She certainly benefitted from having you around.”

“What do you mean.”

“Well let’s just say you dropped a lot of food on the ground. Tara always lay next to your or your great grandfather’s chair when we were eating.”

Tara lay near Elena all day long the day she died.

Dogs just know.

After Elena died it seemed that Tara had had a stroke. I needed to carry her up and down the steps every time we needed to let her out or in. She mostly recovered and lived another year and a half but she was never the same.

When she was younger we’d hear her jump off of the couch as we came in the back door. During her final months on earth she didn’t even bother to disguise that she’d been up on the furniture while we were gone.

One afternoon, long after Tara had recovered, she refused to come back in. She’d clearly been out long enough but she wasn’t moving. She was on the ground behind the swing set shivering. I went out to the back yard and picked her up in my arms.

She hardly moved. I brought her in and sat on the ground next to her. I tried to get her to drink a little but she wasn’t responding.

Kim came home and decided to take the dog to the vet.

It was so much like that afternoon six years ago today. I carried Tara to the car and placed her in the back seat. Same car, same seat as the one I’d placed Elena in six years ago today. Last time Elena didn’t make it to the hospital alive. This time Kim had to make the decision to put her down.

Everything from that day six years ago came back for both of us.

We knew we could never replace Elena, Tara was a different matter. Kim checked out the dogs on Petfinder.com for weeks before we decided to go up to Michigan to get another black lab. This one is named Anabelle.

It turned out that the dog was half german shorthair and that was the half that determined the way she behaved most of the time.

Today Anabelle was quieter than usual. She didn’t jump on me and ask me to play with her. Mostly she napped in a chair. Now and then she stood up to go outside, eat, or shift positions. Mostly she just napped.

Dogs just know.

We have a real hole in the kitchen ceiling. It’s about four feet across and two feet high. The drywall’s ragged edges sag a bit and the wooden slats show through. It’s right above the stove. It’s been there for seven years now. We’ve talked about patching it before, but it reminds us of Elena.

Kim was in the basement doing laundry and water started running down the walls. She ran up to the kitchen to see if something was flooding there. Water was coming down through the ceiling over the stove. So Kim ran up another flight of stairs to the bathroom.

There was Elena standing in three inches of water with the toilet overflowing. She was trying to clear out the obstruction with a toilet cleaning brush. When Kim rounded the corner, Elena looked up beaming holding the brush high with wet toilet paper clinging to the end of it. “Don’t worry mom,” she said, “I’ve got it.

Kim reached over and turned off the water. She bailed some of the water into the tub and then went and got a plunger and cleared the blockage. Kim can still see Elena’s proud face announcing that everything is under control.

At first there was just a small hole in the kitchen ceiling where the water had forced its way down. I put a bucket under it and we caught most of the water. But then the soggy drywall started to sag and fall and soon we had a major hole in the ceiling.

We intended to get around to it – but the discussion always got larger. Maybe we should also fix up the back room. Maybe we’d build an additional room above the back room. The ceiling would get patched whenever we did the larger job.

And then Elena died.

Now we couldn’t patch the hole because somehow it reminded us of her. We know that it’s just silly but we couldn’t patch the hole. We patched large holes in our last house but this one felt different.

About a year ago the toilet overflowed on Maggie. Again, Kim called out from the basement. There was water running down the stack pipe. I ran to the kitchen and there was water there as well. I ran up to the bathroom and there was about an inch of water as the toilet overflowed.

Maggie was in her room reading. I called her in and showed her how to turn the water off. I had her get the plunger and plunge the toilet. I lectured her as I cleaned up the floor about making sure the toilet actually flushed. I went down to the kitchen and pulled away newly soggy and sagging pieces of drywall.

The hole was bigger. It had a different shape. It had a different history. None of that mattered. It was still Elena’s hole in the ceiling. We still weren’t ready to fix it. Not quite yet.

That day probably got us emotionally ready to fix it — soon. I know. It’s silly. But these are the things we see each day that remind us of Elena.

For the last few months Kim’s brother Tommy has been doing work around our house. He and Jim replaced the flat roof in the back and put in a new railing. They replaced the back door and the big hole in that ceiling where the roof had leaked through. So while they were at it, Kim and I decided to ask them to patch the hole in the kitchen.

Yesterday, Tommy cleaned out the opening, evened out the edges, and screwed a new piece of drywall in the hole. He taped up the edges and applied the first layer of mud. The hole was filled.

The physical hole, of course.

The metaphorical hole remains. Yesterday was also my birthday. It was the anniversary of the day we first brought Maggie into our house. It was also Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish New Year.

I’ve had a lot of trouble with this day each year since Elena died.

There’s the tradition that people’s names are written into the book of life on Rosh Hashanah and the book is sealed on Yom Kippur. If your name is not in the book you will not live through the next year. I can’t understand who would leave a beautiful little six year old’s name out of the book. One standing there proudly with a toilet cleaning brush held high above her head with soggy toilet paper clinging to the tip letting all know that we shouldn’t worry, she’s got it.

“Thanks baby.”

“Wanna know what we got you?”

“Sure, baby.”

“We fixed up your bike. It was my idea.”

“ELENA,” Maggie explodes, “it was not. It was both of our ideas.”

I smile. In my head, that’s how I was greeted this morning for Father’s Day. Actually, Kim had my bike fixed up. I haven’t ridden it much since Elena died. The Father’s Day before she died she gave me a new bike pump and a rear reflector. I took my bike up to have it cleaned and tuned a few weeks ago and Kim surprised me by taking it back up and putting smoother tires on it.

Maggie got up around six this morning and popped into our room and went back to sleep while Kim went out for my Father’s Day breakfast. Our tradition for Kim’s Mother’s Day breakfast is pear crepes. For Father’s Day the tradition is bagels broken only once when Kim decided to make us Huevos Rancheros. Part of the tradition is that she forgets to pick up the bagels ahead of time. Usually I remind her the night before but last night the bagel place had closed before she got a chance to stop in.

I think it’s better this way. The bagels are fresh. I made coffee and cut up a tomato and an onion while Kim ran out for the bagels. Traditions.

After breakfast while Kim cleaned up I loaded my iPod shuffle with disk one of “The Essential Bruce Springsteen”. The Big Man died last night. A retrospective seemed like the best soundtrack for this morning.

I hopped on my bike and headed for the cemetery. Actually, in my head I hopped on the bike. In reality I made old-man noises as I threw my leg over and pushed off, wobbling back and forth til I gathered speed.

I ride down our block to Coventry. I cross Shaker Boulevard and pick up a little speed going down hill. It’s a perfect morning for a ride.

In my head, Elena is biking beside me. Her hair is blowing free in the wind.

That’s right. No helmet.

What’s the point. She’s already dead. Streamers in her handle bars and a banana seat. She’s still six and yet she’s keeping up pretty well.

We stop at a light and I lose her. She mainly exists in motion.

“Daddy, next year I’m going to middle school.”

I play along. I know she’s not going to ever go to middle school, but then again she’s not really biking beside me either.

“I know, baby.”

“I’m almost in high school. Then I’m going to drive. Daddy?”

“Yes, baby.”

“I’ve been thinking. When I’m driving the car, it’s ok if you ride in the front seat.”

You would have liked her.

Anyway, I’m sitting on the same green bench I’ve sat on each year. Six Father’s Days looking at Elena’s grave. Traditions.

In my ears, the extended sax solo from “Jungleland” plays. The hand of the Big Man on my shoulder. He gives it a squeeze. “I see her,” the gesture says, “she’s ok. She’s down front doing an interpretive dance and raising a lighter encouraging me to play more.”

A lighter? In Heaven? Sure, you say, we were with you when Clarence Clemons was visiting you in a cemetery in Cleveland. But the lighter — that’s going too far.

In my head Clarence is painting a picture of my baby swaying to his solo and holding a lighter as high as she can. She’s trying to bring him back to play more.

Bruce sings, “Everything that dies someday comes back.” Clarence doesn’t play on this one. The only way to bring him back is to skip to the next track.

“I miss you baby.”

“I know Daddy, but it’s not time.”

“I know. I’m sitting here in the front row on the green bench holding a lighter as high as I can.”

“A lighter, daddy, really?”

“In my head, baby.”

“Well, daddy, that’s where I’ll be performing my encore. In your head.”

Kim noticed that Anabelle never showed any interest in Elena’s room. The dog loved to wander here and there in the house getting into trouble wherever she went but there was nothing calling her in Elena’s room. There was no life there–no scent–nothing to lure her in.

We didn’t keep Elena’s room as a shrine, we just never went in to clean it out. We weren’t ready to repurpose it in any way. We knew what the dog knew–it was no longer Elena’s room. We just weren’t ready to do anything about it.

And then last summer we got an email asking if we would house a Chinese teacher named Kevin. Kevin was one of a group of teachers from China who would spend a couple of years in Shaker teaching Chinese at the elementary schools.

We thought about it and decided that it sounded like a good idea. Maggie could share our bathroom so that Kevin would have his own and Kevin would stay in Elena’s room.

We emailed back the next day and said yes but someone else had already answered that they could provide a room for Kevin and so Elena’s room remained unused.

A couple of months later we got another email. Peggy, one of the other teachers needed to find another place to stay. Might we be willing to offer a room to a female teacher for the fall semester?

Again we answered yes. With a female we could even have Maggie share the bathroom with her. Our only condition was that the young woman come over and meet Anabelle. We weren’t getting the dog’s approval of Peggy, we needed to make sure that Peggy was comfortable with the dog before she moved in.

The other thing we wanted Peggy to know was that she would be staying in Elena’s room. We were clear that Elena hadn’t died in the room but we wanted to be upfront with her that she was staying in the bedroom of a young girl who had died.

Everything went well and we agreed on a day.

As the day grew near we knew that we’d have to clean out Elena’s room. Kim and her mom did most of the work. Kim had been giving clothes and other items away over the years but now she had to go through everything. I’d forgotten how tiny she was when she died–her clothes were so small. Although I hadn’t aged her in my mind I must have grown her a bit as Maggie grew. Elena was always this much smaller than Maggie so in my mind she kept pace.

Kim and her mom changed the sheets, put away the bed rails, packed away the clothes and toys and then they dusted, vacuumed, and scrubbed every inch of the room.

I brought the bagged items up to the attic and cleared away the coats and the shoes.

And that’s when I saw it.

Hanging on the back of the closet door was a purse that I’d made for Elena.

I had taken the girls to a yarn shop and had them each pick out colors for their purse. Maggie chose a maroon and Elena chose a mustard yellow. I knit a big floppy purse for each one of them. Maggie’s was maroon with mustard yellow trim and Elena’s was mustard yellow with maroon trim. A little bit of each of them in the other’s purse. I trimmed both purses with a few rows of fuzzy shaggy yarn.

Then it was time for each of them to transform their own purse. Elena came with me to the basement and felted hers. The floppy purse tightened up and became a beautiful smooth felt purse. Once it dried Maggie came down to felt hers. That year that was the only Channukah present I gave each of them.

I’d forgotten about them until I found Elena’s hanging from the back of her closet door.

Peggy moved in a few days later. We still refer to her room as Elena’s room. Then again we still refer to the house two door’s down as the Phelan house even though they moved out years ago.

Some time back, I don’t remember when, Peggy asked Kim if she could stay for the whole year. Kim said yes. At the beginning of February Kim stopped for pizza and gourmet cupcakes on her way back from work. Peggy happened to join us for dinner that night. As we sat down Kim asked Peggy when her birthday was. We had just missed it. So after the meal Kim put candles in one of the cupcakes and we sang Happy Birthday to Peggy. Peggy was very happy and asked Kim where she got those cupcakes.

That was the beginning of February. Somehow I thought Elena’s room would be empty again during this anniversary of the day of her death and the day of her birth. It was kind of nice that it wasn’t.

Last night Peggy came down the stairs around seven o’clock and said she’d was going out but would be back.

“Where did she go,” Kim asked me.

“I don’t know, she didn’t say,” I said.

“The library?” Kim pressed as if asking me more specific questions would help me remember something I didn’t know.

“I don’t know.”

An hour and a half later Peggy came back. “Sorry,” she said, “I got lost. Some of the streets were closed for construction.”

Kim made sure she was ok.

“Here,” Peggy said holding out a pink box.

“What is it?” Kim asked.

“Cupcakes,” said Peggy, “for Elena’s birthday.”

We decided we’d wait til morning to eat them as everyone was full. Maggie put the box up high so that Anabelle couldn’t eat them.

Peggy said goodnight and headed up to Elena’s room.

I tapped Kim on the shoulder and pointed. It was the start of the Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the rabbit and there was a rabbit just outside of our kitchen window.

Perfect.

Peggy, the Chinese woman living with us this year, is the year of the dog. “That means,” she explained, “that I am twenty-eight years old.”

If you’ve looked at your placemat in most neighborhood Chinese restaurants then you’ve probably looked up the year you were born to figure out your animal in the Chinese zodiac. Of course it can be used the other way around. Once you know someone is the year of the dog then they are either twenty-eight or some multiple of twelve older or younger.

Kim and Maggie are both the year of the rat. I’m the year of the boar.

Elena was a rabbit. Along with her Chinese name we have an image of a rabbit on her gravestone.

On the new year I was thinking of my little rabbit running across a field with her head tipped back so her hair flowed behind her. Most of my memories of Elena have her embracing life and doing something with abandon.

If you’re going to do the hokey-pokey you might as well skip to the part where you put your whole self in and you shake it all about. No need to be coy and just put an arm or a leg in.

With those memories of Elena, I headed off to the cemetery to spend some time at her grave. There was snow everywhere. Deep snow. The only footprints in her section were animals. I walked across the snow covered graves towards hers. There was a solid crust on top of the snow. I stomped down near where her headstone should be and my foot broke through and sunk way down. I was up to my knee in snow with no real chance of finding her stone.

I pulled my foot out of the hole I’d made and stood for a minute. If this were a movie, a rabbit would appear from behind a bush and wink at me. It wasn’t a movie. And it was getting a bit cold. I brushed off the snow and headed back to my car. It will be the year of the rabbit all year. I can come visit her another time.

I’d never thought about it but the Chinese New Year is yet another axis for memories. We have stories of friends and families that come up each year when we celebrate different holidays. Telling and retelling these stories become part of our tradition. We have stories we tell on Christmas Eve’s and Passover Seder’s and Fourth of July’s. We remember where we were for those holidays and people who are no longer with us by telling of the year that something happened..

For the Chinese New Year in addition to these memories of celebrating the holiday each year there are these extra leaps backwards of twelve years. We ring in the year of the rabbit — do you say “ring in” for Chinese New Year — and you remember. You remember other rabbits or you remember the last time it was the year of the rabbit. I also think ahead to next time.

Twelve years is too long. Who can predict where they’ll be twelve years from now or what they’ll be doing? What will the world be like the next time we celebrate the year of the rabbit?

Silly to ask.

They do care – they just don’t want to know all the details.

When I was younger I was annoyed when people would say “have a nice day” or “how are you” but now I see it as a way of touching someone else, briefly, in a polite and possibly friendly way.

But every now and then someone asks “how are you?” and they mean it. You can feel the difference. They pause to hear what you are about to say. They look at you ready to find the truth behind your dismissive, “I’m ok.” They care. That’s a gift.

This morning my friend Mark met me for coffee — I’m always meeting people for coffee — and asked me how I’m doing.

I started to say, “I’m ok.” I didn’t want to bum him out. But I looked at him and realized he was really asking. So I told him. “I’m sad.”

This afternoon, the phone rang and a friend of Kim’s greeted me warmly and asked “how are you all doing?”

I knew what she meant and so I told her. “I’m sad.”

“I know,” she said, “tomorrow’s Elena’s birthday.” She remembered. She called to share the memory and take a little of the sadness. That’s a gift.

I’m not sad all the time. Mostly I’m very happy. Mostly life is filled with endless possibilities and wonderful friends. Kim and Maggie and I laugh a lot.

But some days I’m sad. I can’t explain it but being sad doesn’t make me unhappy. I still miss Elena. That makes me sad but it is somehow reassuring.

And that’s how I am. Really.

Yesterday he had a question he wasn’t sure how to ask.

His family was helping to put on a memorial breakfast for a girl who had died suddenly a year earlier. One of his daughter’s had been very close with the young girl. They had grown up together, gone to grade school together, and, even though they were in different high schools, they remained great friends.

The girl’s mom was worried. What happens when no one outside of the family remembers her daughter?

I told Craig that we know exactly how she feels. We are relieved when someone else mentions Elena’s name or shares a story with us. In two short years she’ll be gone longer than she was here. We only have so many reruns to watch. We retell stories to each other almost ritualistically. We love when someone else remembers something about Elena and tells us about it.

I love reruns.

I’ve seen the WKRP turkey episode dozens of times. The live turkeys are released from an airplane over a shopping mall as the news reporter wails into his mic “oh the humanity.” Like all good reruns I stay til the end. I smile every time I see the well intentioned station manager return, puzzled and defeated, to the station and sigh “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

As much as I love reruns, I love new episodes too. Without new episodes, of course, there would be no reruns. But it’s more than that. I love seeing a show with someone I know in one roll from another show playing an inconsequential walk-on in this other episode.

Elena’s life only ran for seven years. That’s fourteen seasons. Sure she lives on in syndication, but I love when someone tells me a story about her that I may not know or a story about her that I do know but from a different perspective.

She died five years ago today.

I still love the reruns.

I knew I had plenty of time but I still hurried along. In my final leg I found myself matched step for step by a father and his young son.

The boy looked at his father without slowing and asked, “what if mommy doesn’t get to the plane on time?”

The dad looked down, smiled, and reassured the boy, “she will.”

“But what if she doesn’t?” the boy insisted.

The man took a few steps to think before answering. “Well,” he said in his soft British accent, “then we’ll come back and get her.”

“All the way from Cleveland?” the boy asked.

“All the way from Cleveland,” his dad answered.

What a perfect answer. In that moment the dad had given his son such a gift. The boy looked up at his dad with relief and admiration. All of the things that could go wrong with his mom making the flight didn’t matter. If they had to, they’d come back for her all the way from Cleveland.

Someone I follow on Twitter noted that one of his skills is “to remove more stress from a room than he contributes.” The dad had done that and more. Often people want comfort and caring. They just need to know that someone cares enough to listen.

I’m at the cemetery again on father’s day. I began my day with an awesome card from Maggie and breakfast with her and Kim. I’ve spoken with my dad and brother and now it’s time for me to spend time with Elena. I know she’s not here but it comforts me.

People come and go.

Twenty yards beyond me a man sits down on the ground next to his dad’s grave and says, “Well, it’s your day.”

He sits next to the grave and chats with his dad much as they must have while he was alive. Not long ago Elena’s grave was at the back of this section. Now it’s about half way back. By the time the section is filled she’ll be just about a third of the way in.

The man sits in what is now the back row. His dad must have died this year. It’s his first father’s day without his father. A couple joins him at the gravesite. The woman seems to be his sister. They chat for a bit while The husband smokes and wanders off to another grave twenty yards to my left.

I can’t imagine their loss. My dad is still around. We can IM, talk on the phone, and in a couple of weeks go to a ball game the way we have for fifty years. Every few minutes another car pulls up, people get out and spend time at a grave — usually a few moments — and then they move on.

After I left my last gig I got a note from one of the partners. It said, “You aren’t the only one dealing with death, you know.”

I know.

I know that as I sit in the graveyard watching others and I know when I sit in coffee shops on ordinary days. There are people who want to talk to me about the deaths in their lives because they know about mine and there are people who want to talk to me about the deaths in their lives without having any idea of Elena. They’re just looking for caring. For comfort.

I’m not the only one dealing with death.

I know.

And everyone’s death is more important to them than mine and that’s the way it should be. The week that he sent that I had spent four days intimately involved with other people’s deaths. Two people I know are dying and two people I knew had died.

I sat with one person who is dying at the public library while Maggie was at soccer practice. She looked great. She’d been fighting cancer and it looked as if she had won.

She hadn’t.

She was managing her pain and preparing her daughter and friends for a life without her. I listened not knowing what to say. I did have the sense not to say “You aren’t the only one dealing with death, you know.”

She knows.

No one has more of a right to be selfish than this amazing woman sitting beside me.and yet that’s not who she is. She gave Maggie such a love for the written word. Maggie had always loved to read but in fourth grade she learned to slow down and let the words run around her mouth a bit before swallowing.

This woman is never in a hurry. She moves slowly–no slowly is the wrong word–but she is unhurried. She gives full attention to what is in front of her.

She has so little time left that I don’t want to take too much of it. She listens to me intently and speaks in a voice full of thought and kindness. Without taking too much of her precious time—and it is precious— I want her to know how much I value the time she’s given us.

If you knew you only have a fixed amount of time on earth, would you spend it differently?

We talked about books and about mutual friends. We talked about our daughters. She geared up now and then and I didn’t pretend not to notice. She doesn’t have time for such silliness. Mainly she’s concerned about her daughter. Her daughter has lost one parent and now in her mid twenties is about to lose another one.

Unlike the little boy in the airport, there’s nowhere for her daughter to fly to when her mother stops making this journey with her. She’s going to want to for many years.

I know.

I’m sitting in front if Elena’s grave during the fifth Father’s Day since she died. If I could fly and get my baby and bring her back I certainly would. All the way from Cleveland.

We’ve actually never met her. She started after Elena died and so we’ve never spoken to her or learned her name and yet every day we exchange a wave and a smile. She does that to everyone who drives by. It’s a great thing for a crossing guard to do—it makes drivers more aware of her presence. It makes us approach her intersection differently.

It also makes me feel good. I like the friendly hopeful gesture of someone who waves and smiles to all who pass by. It’s a silent “have a nice day” from a stranger. I never get tired of exchanging a “have a nice day” as long as it’s delivered with feeling.

Coventry road dead ends a block later.  Kim and I look back to the median strip at the garden our neighbors planted for Jan and Elena. Susan and her son have once again taken the time to paint Elena’s name on hearts and hang them from the tree at the end of the garden. A block to the right of the crossing guard is another garden for Elena in front of her elementary school. There are hearts hanging from that tree as well.

Kindness on every corner.

Four years earlier people started coming over early in the day to sit with us and help us through. When the first knock on the door came at 7:30, Kim and I had been up for hours. We woke early the day after our daughter died not believing it was real. Not believing we wouldn’t find out that she was back to being alive. People reached through the fog and talked to us and put cups of coffee in our hands and made sure we ate and drank and did the things we needed to do. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening to us. We were observing it while living through it.

People who could come just be with us, came over. People who couldn’t come over sent us email, wrote us letters, and called us on the phone. People who couldn’t bring themselves to do either thought good thoughts. We were surrounded by kindness.

Four years.

Kim and I have the girls’ school pictures in frames on a desk in the living room. For the past four years Kim has slid Maggie’s new picture in front of her old one. Elena’s remains the same. Her first grade picture with her hair not quite right and her face just beginning to lengthen from the round face of a child to the adult she would never become.

She was making the change as a person too. She had begun to understand that the world wasn’t always fair but she got indignant if people didn’t appreciate the goodness in her intent and she was devastated when people where mean to each other. She was truly bothered if Kim and I ever argued in front of her and she was sensitive to how people talked to her.

Kim and I look at how much Maggie has changed in the last four years and we wonder what would have changed and what would have stayed the same about Elena. We’ve always seen both sides of the sensitivity aspect. On the one hand, she probably would be better equipped to take on the world if she toughened up and on the other hand why can’t someone stay sweet and trusting.

This is how Conan O’Brien ended his farewell monologue on the Tonight Show. “Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Work hard. Be kind.

We try, but boy Conan wasn’t kidding when he said that we wouldn’t get what we thought we would. It’s been a challenge to continue to work hard and be kind in the face of Elena’s death. It would be so easy to say “why bother” but that would be missing the point of the way she led her short life and the cocoon of kindness we find ourselves inside of.

I think I’ve managed to maintain my inner six year old. I love to work hard on cool projects. I don’t mind being corrected or refocused. I do mind when people don’t value me or are mean. I know. It’s childish. I left a job last week because one partner valued process over people and the other one was unapologetically mean.

I don’t think you can change other people, but I know that other people change me. I take on the characteristics of the people who surround me. In college I roomed with a guy who was sarcastic and mean to those around him. I didn’t notice it until my father and sister visited and pointed out that I was becoming a lot like him.

So who would Elena have become? I don’t know. It would have depended somewhat on the people who surrounded her. And then there would have been the teen years to enter and exit. I think I would add to Conan’s advice.

Work hard. Be kind. Surround yourself with people who support you, challenge you, and are kind to you.

I can’t tell you why I’ve returned to writing today but I can tell you why I stopped. My last post was on my third Father’s day without Elena. I wrote about my family and about the losses of two friends of mine. Someone commented within days that he was disappointed in me because he felt that I’ve “yet to reach the stage of pure acceptance, and willingness to move on. I was looking for the entry that essentially said that you have come to terms with your grief, and finally realize that the fact that you have a child who died makes you no different and no more special than anyone else. Death doesn’t define the person who has to go on living, or at least it shouldn’t.”

Well I don’t think having a child who died makes me more special than anyone else but I do think it makes me different. It colors everything I experience. Today is my birthday and I love the time I’m spending with friends and family. But every time someone asks me what I want for my birthday, I think “I want my baby back.”

This is as unrealistic as when I was younger and wanted James Earle Jones’ voice for my birthday. I stopped at least half an octave short of that dream. I still have a voice I’ve come to be at peace with and occasionally even like.

Similarly, just because I can’t have Elena back doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the people and things that surround me. I’ll never say “This is C N N” and I’ll never again see my two girls together.

It’s my birthday and I think it’s yet another milestone Elena never lived to see me through and one she never lived to experience for herself.

I accept that she’s dead but I’m not sure what a willingness to move on would bring me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t spend my days immobilized by her death. I don’t think I’m a drag to be around. I don’t think I’m depressed or prone to mope. But Elena’s life and death remain with me and define as much as my marriage to Kim and my being Maggie’s dad.

When I got married and again when we adopted Maggie I got a glimpse at what “forever” means. When Elena died I lost track a little bit. At first her death was like a sprint. I carried it with me with pain and intensity that you can only endure in a short run with a clear goal. Over the first months it turned into a marathon. The pain was still there but it was pacing itself for the longer race. But a marathon still ends and the irony of Elena’s death is that it helped me realize that you can’t run through life as if you are heading to a finish line.

So if moving on means living my life and trying to get the most out of it—then I’m there. If it means not thinking of our loss or my little girl then I’m comfortable knowing that I never will be.

Fifty feels like the Popeye years are beginning. Some of you may be disappointed in my lack of growth or progress with respect to Elena’s death but “I Yam what I Yam.” Others may complain about the shallowness of my writing. I’m ok with that too.

I woke up this morning with so many things I want to accomplish. You are welcome to join me or not. I love having you along, but I’m writing these pages for me.

I think I’m going to love being fifty.