Inside Gigi's World

Today is June 18th.

Just an ordinary day for ordinary thing to get done by people just trying to live their every day lives.

Walk the dog.

Take out the trash.

Do the laundry.

June 18th does not seem like an ordinary day to me…

Not anymore.

If I am being honest, it hasn’t been for a long while now.

Grief is a tricky bastard. Once you think you have navigated your way through it, you realize it was just a trick your brain was playing on you. It stays at bay until it rushes over you like a wave crashing over you, pulling you down in it’s wake.

June 17th 2014 started off as an ordinary day, doing ordinary things.

I had been sleeping with my phone by my side incase Mikey took a turn for the worse. On that particular night, I was just so tired. I realized I had left my phone downstairs. I was snuggled up to Rich and fell asleep before I had even realized it.

I dreamt.

Mikey was there. He told me I’d be alright. He told me I was his best friend. He told me it was his time to go, not mine. He told me I had a long life to live and he’d be with me every step of the way. I told him that I would miss him, I asked if he could stay just a little while longer and he told me he could not. We sat for a while. I felt death all around us. The sky was dark. We were sitting on a cliff with water below.

He told me it was time. He was there and then he was gone.

When I woke up in the morning of June 18th, 2014, before I had seen the missed calls. Before I seen the missed text messages. Before I went on Facebook, I knew he was gone.

That one moment changed the course of many people’s lives.

That moment was the start of a series of events that changed my life.

The day, June 18th, never held any significance for me. It was just an ordinary day with ordinary things. Until it wasn’t.

There have been eight June 18ths since 2014.

8 years today.

That’s 2,922 days.

There are some times when it feels as though it has only been seconds. Other times it feels as though it has been a lifetime.

He had the best smile.

He would sing along to ridiculous gangsta rap with me on our car rides home from school.

He wore wide leg jeans and chains on his wallet.

He could be trusted.

He made a difference in people’s lives, one of them being me and I always appreciate when people tell me stories of how he impacted theirs. It makes me feel prideful and happy and sad all at once.

Every year that passes because the emotions become more confusing. I have learned to live with the loss and I have embraced the fact that I will feel that for the rest of my life. I feel guilty that life goes on even when one does not.

I often wonder what he’d think of what was going on around here. I think he’d find humor in my adventures of motherhood and I think Richie would have rode dirt bikes with him and Jill would have had Uncle Mikey wrapped around her little fingers.

I talk to him everyday.

And when I see 2 birds flying together, 2 dragonflies whizzing by or see the breeze rip through the trees, I think it is a sign of Mikey and Amiee telling me they are OK and together.

June 18th will never be ordinary to me anymore, how could it be when my best friend gained his wings and became a star in the night sky.