December 15th - June 15th: 6 months. 1/2 year.
Feels like longer, and yet feels like it was yesterday. If Timmy walked in the door, it would be like he never left. He remains a loved and “present” part of our family - “present” in the sense that we talk about him frequently, discuss memories of him often, and love to say what we think he would like, do, or say in a given situation. This is natural and unforced for us 💙. Even Elaina, our 6 year old, expressed this a couple weeks ago when she told me that she often still feels like Timmy is alive “inside” of her. 😭 We miss him beyond the ability to describe in words, and if you have ever lost someone very close to you, you can understand this. In some sense our memories, loving comments that include our son/brother, and thoughts of him keep him “present” with us; however, it is hard not to feel like this is fading with time, our memories becoming a little less crisp and clear, as we are unable to keep adding and making new ones with Timmy. This distance and fading is part of the grief.😔 
Our love for him feels like it has grown (if that were possible) since his death. Life has become even more valuable and precious to us and we no longer take for granted some of the things that we may have before. 
There are more anxieties that we must battle - events or things that “trigger” us and we must battle to stay calm, think rationally, and work through. I believe this is a normal occurrence with grief. And yet God sustains. At times I wonder how I am functioning as well as I am (although admittedly, there is never a moment that Timmy isn’t somewhere in my mind) and the only answer I have is by God’s grace. At other times, the pain is so overwhelming that I don’t know how I can bear it, but now with a little time and experience, I can see that these times are waves 🌊 (sometimes more frequent than others, sometimes bigger and longer, sometimes shorter) and that if I can just “keep swimming,” sometimes just one stroke at a time, the Lord will bring me through to a place of relative stability again…showing His faithfulness. I often think of Timmy’s courage. The courage God gave Timmy to do what he did, one step at a time, and still achieve, smile, and successfully DO the hard things. We continue to need and strive for that courage now…but its source is the Lord. And in some sense we do it in memory of Timmy.  
I recognize that grieving with others is a gift: Having others to talk with, cry with, and remember with, who actually knew and loved Timmy in similar ways is a comfort and a help. For all of us. In some ways our grief is deepened by the grief of our family (&friends), especially our children, and yet it is also a comfort, with shared love and memories, and nothing can replace that. We are so thankful to not have to miss Timmy alone, or grieve alone.
I pray for those that do grieve deep losses alone. 
We’ve been through half a year without him. We’ve experienced Christmas without him. (although it didn’t really feel like our first Christmas without him because his death was so close to it and so much of that “holiday season” involved his passing and funeral. We still had a somewhat protective “shock” that was in place at that time. We even celebrated early with Timmy several days before he died, although it wasn’t what we would have ideally wanted it to be, of course.) New Year’s was hard: processing the fact that Timmy wouldn’t be moving into 2023 with us felt like we were leaving him “behind” and yet time moves forward and is controlled by no man. 
In the last few months, we’ve celebrated Libby and Natalie’s birthdays, Mother’s Day, along with other events that we especially felt his absence at. Sometimes one can anticipate when something might be especially difficult and emotional, but sometimes it can strike you out of NOWHERE - in places or situations that you might not expect. It has made me stand in public and look around and think something along the lines of “No one can see where I’m coming from right now. I’m barely holding it together, on the verge of tears. One little ‘bump’ and I may sob….and I’m just grocery shopping.” 😳 Choose to give others the benefit of the doubt. Show GRACE. Choose to “assume the best” about someone in a situation, recognizing that you cannot see everything (or anything) about what someone may be going through. The woman standing next to you appearing to be unable to focus, indecisive, and emotional may have recently lost her tender-aged son. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at her.
Interestingly, Jesus DOES know everything about me. He DOES see where I’m coming from and can understand suffering to the deepest degree. Jesus experienced suffering beyond our ability to comprehend.  His reason for doing this was His love and compassion for His people. Jesus offers us help, hope, and life now and for all of eternity! 
May Jesus show mercy to me as I fumble through grief, and may he enable me to be a more gracious person as a result. ❤️