We were so young.

Pages to fill. Chapters unwritten. Stories to live.

They were all right there. All ahead. So many blank pages.

We were so young.

Unready. Unwilling to entertain a before and after. A life without.

And yet, here we are. 13 years later.

It hits different each year. These milestones. Moments without you.

Like a filter sifting something new out of grief. Something to take with me. Or maybe, simply discovering something you left behind.

“I knew your dad.” I hear this, even twelve years after you’ve been gone.

I may have been the only Division 1 athlete to have been escorted to a college competition by her grandpa. Minivan arrival. Peanut butter sandwiches in a cooler from the seventies. If there had been a button with my face on it, he surely would’ve worn it. We rolled up to my competition in Missouri like I was ten and it was some park ‘n rec Hershey’s track meet, rather than the Sam Walton Combined Event Carnival hosted by University of Missouri that it actually was.

I took only one photo at Drake this year. It was this one. Marley and her “hypothetically threw away bib number” bib number. I made her hold it and smile for me because there’s a little irony in it. This is her fourth year at Drake. Fourth year of the bib number shuffle. So of all the kids that may have, “hypothetically” lost a bib number, you wouldn’t expect it to be her.

I thought I knew enough about volleyball.

Bump. Set. Spike.

Three tries to get it over the net.

Score on a serve. Oh wait, nope. They don’t do that any more.

My daughter started playing volleyball this winter. She and her sixth grade teammates, all trying the sport for the first time, were adorable in their little knee pads and their completely unsynchronized ACE chant.

There’s this thing I do when I’m driving. Before I explain, I should probably clarify that I have no sense of direction. North, South, East, West, yeah I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say this. Names of roads and highways? Yeah, it doesn’t register. I need landmarks.