July 30

Logan's 13th birthday is tomorrow. I can't even come close to imagining what he'd be into or what he'd look like or how he'd behave at 13, and the weight of not knowing can be so heavy that I can't even come close to explaining --even to myself at times-- how it feels. But I know who he was at five and I hold that five-year old and all of his five-year old likes and dislikes and desires very close to my heart. And today, that five-year old gave me a pair of little waves from beyond.

The first came this afternoon when I went to Walmart to find a new car to put on his grave tomorrow. I was just there yesterday so I was surprised to find the pegs overflowing with cars with faces (as he called them). So I scooped up the ones I didn't already have in my collection along with a hydraulic Ramone (since it has a flame job and he was always very impressed by flame jobs) and headed out to my car.

As I drove down the road toward the house a minute later, "Life is a Highway" --the theme to the original "Cars" movie-- came on the radio. I was initially disappointed that it wasn't the Rascal Flatts version that played during the movie, but then I had a thought: sure, it's a different version, but it's still the same song with the same words and the same melody. And somehow, that truth made not knowing who Logan would be today a little less painful. It's like he was saying "it's still the same song, mom, just like I'm still me." Different, yes, but still with the same basic underpinnings that made him who he was (and still is).

So for that little duo of cheer and the nugget of wisdom on the eve of a day that will be no doubt be bittersweet, I'm thankful.