Thank you for tuning in. This has been a year of sorrows.

Covid, jobs lost, lives lost, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and all of the other sorrows that accumulated this year.

For all of us. I got a head start and wanted to share my journal and reflections from the year. Starting tomorrow, I’ll post those writings a year and a day after I wrote them.

Before I do, though I wanted to remember waking on this date last year.

At 6 am, Oct. 28, 2019, I looked in on Gabriel sleeping. He had pulled the covers over his head and I wanted to pull them down, kiss his forehead, and remind him that I love him. But he’d been sleeping poorly lately, so I chose not to disturb him. I’d see him later this afternoon once I got home from school, before he might work. I can tell him then.

I did tell him later, and many times since, but I can’t be sure that he’s heard me at all.

This was the last time I saw him breathing the same air as me.