Salute

Three days after the shooting, and I was trying harder than I ever had. Trying, that was all I could do; try, for my children. Try to act at least close to normal; feed them, play with them, talk to them, put them to bed on time. We- I had delayed Ellie's first day of school, at least for now. Going in a week later wouldn't hurt her, and right now... well, there just wasn't another option. Other family members played with the children, occupied them as I tried to wrap my head around the idea of planning a funeral for the twenty nine year old man who had been alive, in my arms, just forty eight hours earlier. Suddenly, I was getting calls from everyone from Sony executives to celebrities to lawyers to my old second cousins, with messages ranging from condolences to information I should know about my husband's will. And during it all, I was grieving; not the sitting weeping, dressed in black that one sees in movies and television, but so much more. So much worse. It would hit me in waves, over and over again: denial, pain, brief periods of acceptance, followed by almost forgetting for a second, only to have it hit me all over again. It was worst at bedtime. Max and Ellie both slept with me now, I couldn't sleep without them, not in the bed we had shared, our marriage bed, the bed where both of our children had been conceived, the bed which still smelled like him. It was almost possible to forget, when I half awoke in the night, that he was gone; his scent surrounded me, the bed was warm, our children were asleep in my arms the way they had been so many times before, when they had had nightmares or been sick or simply wanted a cuddle. But he was gone; that could not be avoided after the haze of sleep lifted.

On the third day, I decided we needed to get out of the house. We needed some sort of distraction, however temporary, just for the three of us. I dressed them both, and, leaving my phone on the kitchen counter, walked them out the front door in the direction of the park. One little hand holding each of mine, we walked along the sidewalk under a cloudy sky, and I tried to think of anything to talk about that was not their father.

"So, what do you want to do at the park? Do you want to look at the ducks? Do you want to play tag? We can do whatever you'd like."

"Ooooh, ooh ooh ohh can we look at the ducks? I wanna see the ducks, I like the ducks. Can we feed them? Please, please?" Ellie looked up at me, smiling for the first time in what felt like days, her brown eyes wide with wonder. It was amazing how just the mention of a few ducks in a pond could inspire such wonder in such a small child. I felt tears forming behind my eyes, but held them back, trying not to blink them out. My daughter was smiling again. I would not let the sudden onslaught of emotions sweeping over me have affect them. I couldn't cause my children any more pain than the world already had, just in the last three days.

"Of course we can, love." My voice caught on the last word, but I breathed through it, clearing my throat quietly so as not to let them hear it. "Max, my lovely, what would you like to do, hmm?"

Max was quiet for a moment, and I could almost hear the cogs in his little two year old head turning.

"Can we play with Daddy?"

My throat closed.

I couldn't look down at him, or at Ellie. My poor daughter... old, mature beyond her years, who understood enough to understand that daddy wasn't coming back. But Max... my poor, sweet boy. My little angel, with curls and a smile so like his father's. He just didn't understand... he could see enough to remember Daddy, and to want him back, but even telling him that Daddy couldn't come back... he just couldn't understand it. All he wanted was him back. And so did I, but there was nothing I could I do. Nothing any of us could do, except to try to protect the ones who were still here from as much pain as we could.

"Max..."

I couldn't look at him, but I felt him look up at me, felt his little fingers curling tighter around a few of mine at my side.