I just dropped María off at BARC.  This was the weekend she finally got to open birthday presents after a whole week making her days at school.  She slept over, we had a pillow fight last night and giggled that she was trying to get away with not brushing her teeth before going to bed.  I turned out the lamp by my bed listening to her and her daddy cheer on the Miami Heat.  This morning, the old comfortable ways of being family just happened.  But she is getting a bad cold and about an hour ago, she said, “I am not feeling well, can I please go home?”

Two years ago on this Sunday afternoon, my mother lay dying. Time hasn’t dimmed that memory enough yet. One year ago, it was the first Sunday after having Baker acted María; we knew she would not come home from the hospital but would transition straight to BARC.

I had thought grief slowly dissipates.  Today I am not so sure.  I think it draws into itself further and further, tighter and tighter, until it is like a tiny black hole tucked into a place no one dares go near.  But there are times, and today is one of them, when it breaks lose and tears through my existence without mercy or consolation, hollowing me out.  It happens in a flash.  And you have to keep going.  Black hole and all.