“How many children do you have?”

It’s hard for me now to answer the question “How many children do you have?”

Luckily for most parents it’s an easy response — not one that requires consideration of the setting, social situation, how well you know the person or how much you feel like sharing that day. It’s just a number.

For a bereaved parent, there are so many circumstances that force you to experience complex emotions with little to no warning. I never knew or had given much thought before to how immersive and all-encompassing profound loss is, but it’s a rare day that I am not presented with an event, a conversation or encounter that has me suddenly confronting feelings that can be unsettling or confusing.

Like, what the hell do I say on National Sons Day? Do I even know how this makes me feel?

Scrolling through everyone’s heartfelt messages of pride and love, I can’t help but remember how uncomplicated my thoughts used to be. Here are my boys — they are awesome and we are lucky and I love them both.

I love them both.

Since one of them is now no longer living, I search endlessly for ways to keep him close to me. I think about how I might incorporate all the best things about him into my own walk through life, taking his beauty and power with me so the world will still know him. Its a daily battle to guard the positive energy of his amazing self from being lost to the thief of painful longing and sadness.

How do I avoid letting that mission overshadow, diminish or pull focus from the immense pride I feel for my son who is here with me still — my incredibly gifted, hardworking, adventurous, funny charmer of a son who has achieved and overcome so much and tries his best to love me enough for both of them?

Has anything really changed even though everything did? Is my love for them different just because I am so different?

And why does a sort of dumb internet fad of a fake holiday come looking for my messed up brain with so much intensity anyway? Is there a test afterwards that proves unequivocally that I love them both? What does it matter, after all?

I love them both.

I guess that’s what I’ve got. For now. I have 2 sons and they are awesome and we remain lucky.

One I get to watch grow and change and hopefully create many new memories with beyond where I can see.

The other is beyond where I can see and memories of him accompany every beat of my heart.

I love them both.