Cole (Trey to me and the boys) died seventeen years ago today.
Huh.
It seems like it was a movie. It seems like another lifetime. Maybe it was just a lifetime movie that I caught at the end on a fuzzy cable channel back in the day when we had channels on the television instead of apps. On the upside, I don't miss anything I want to see now because I can start it when I please.
Seventeen years, and this weekend Henry turns twenty-two. And he's finished university and already working away in his chosen field and his bosses are very proud of him.
Cole would have been proud of him too.
Everyone is.
Would he be proud of me? I don't know. Maybe. Probably not. He always had this disdain for me, as I deferred to Lochlan forever (and will forever) and Cole felt as though I was marked. That he would always be second place.
So tonight I raise my glass and pour it out in the grass for another year gone by and say things out loud I never would have dared to say with him present.
Third. You were third place. Ha.
I still say it quietly. He's probably around here somewhere.