This time last year, I don’t even know where my mind was. Between moving into my home, straightening up my mom’s affairs, and mourning my best friend, this time last year got away from me. I was still functioning, but I was on auto pilot. As a result, I still can’t find half of the things that I put away in my kitchen. Grief makes it challenging to form new memories. The body seems to treat it as a trauma. File it under not worth remembering and just let it go. This year, with Thanksgiving here, I’m working on giving thanks for everything that I do have. Despite suicide loss and an incredibly difficult year, I’m working to refocus my energy.

I’m hoping that this doesn’t read like an elementary school paper, assigned to get kids thinking about what they already have, before getting into the season of giving which for children is a bit more of a season for selfishness. In my life, I am so thankful for the people who surround me. Everyone who helps to support me when grief still comes creeping up on me. My friends who deal with me talking about how much I miss people who aren’t here anymore. My husband, who tries so hard to support me, even though he never met Kody. Suicide loss isn’t something that others can really grasp, so anyone still trying to support me deserves thanks.

I am thankful for the house that I bought and put together while all of this was going on last year. This house has proved a wonderful distraction in that I’ve been able to start many projects that have helped to take my mind off of things. Even though I have no idea where half the things in my kitchen are, I am still thankful that those things exist. I love the yard that my dogs can run in and explore and the beauty that the people before us put into that space.

I can even be thankful for the grief that I have experienced this year. The fact that these wonderful humans were a part of my life and I got the chance to be a part of theirs is still so valuable. The fact that I can still miss and grieve my best friend and my mother over a year after they’re gone is wonderful in that they were people that were worth missing. I am so lucky to have had such an amazing support system growing up and to have had such a close relationship with my mother. I miss her and Kody every day because they are people who are worth remembering.

Giving thanks for what I still have and for all the privileges that I have had in my life is so important. I am so thankful that even when I am screaming into the void, I have this blog that I can do that with. I have the writing talent to put feelings into words. There are even occasionally people who think it is worth reading the words that I am hemorrhaging into the universe. Life after suicide loss is always challenging. Taking this Thanksgiving to try to focus less on what I no longer have and more on what I do have is going to be a challenge. But the good news is I have so much to be thankful for.