To the editor:

It has been snowing most of today and last year’s first snow fall is permanently etched in my memory. I recall being seated at the dining room table, dolefully staring out the bay window when the flakes began to float gently from the sky.

Through a heavy sigh and tears that had visited me a thousand times since that fateful Friday night in October 2004, I breathed, “Oh no, there is snow on my son’s grave.” My husband gently answered, “Yes, and it will be there all winter.” In grief I asked, “Do you think I will be able to find his grave when the snow is deep?” He reassuringly applied, “Yes, I promise I will help you find him in the deep snow.” A tall, ebony marbled memorial with a porcelain portrait marks James’ grave this winter. I will visit it and grieve often.

It is hard to describe this feeling after a year. It is just as pungent. It is just as bitter. It is just as inconsolable. Tears do not wash it away, and it still seems as though it happened yesterday. But it does not visit me every day now. I miss you so very much James.

Jodi L. Pogline