Tomorrow marks one year. I don’t want to dwell on it here, because I feel like it’s not my pain and somehow, by writing about it too much, I somehow act like it is.

Don’t get me wrong: I feel pain. We all do.

But it’s nothing to what my sister-in-law and his daughters feel.

So I am posting this merely to ask for your prayers in a special way in the coming days. It has been a rough holiday season, I know, though they haven’t mentioned it. And after a year, the pain is different but still very, very there.

And he is not.

And we remember that.

I’ve learned a lot about my late brother-in-law in the last year. My respect and regard for him have grown. And, for some reason, I feel quite a bit of regret about that, that I didn’t take time, make time, have time in the 38 years he was with us to explore him further.

Mary, Mother of Sorrows, be a mother to us now.