"I promise."

I had a hard day at the office today.

Not that you want to read about my tough day. You probably had a tough day, too. At home or at the office.

See, it is Easter Monday, and I wanted to be in a more celebratory mood. Today follows my favorite holiday of the year. Yes, I like Easter more than Christmas (too much stressing over presents or, truth be told, our family budget for presents). I like it even more than Thanksgiving (which I like more than Christmas Day, because on Thanksgiving I get to cook a humongous meal for our family of five, and I gorge myself into a Tryptophan-induced amoeba-like state, and then get to induce that single-cell status for several days following).

I like the holiday because I celebrate something that is so pure, so beautiful, so precious, so real, so hopeful and so deep, that I can only describe it to you by adding superlatives and modifiers and “so” this and “so” that.

Yesterday had everything to do with my not being the same person June 14, 1994, as I was June 13, 1994. Sure, some things stayed the same, but some were mysteriously altered and some I’m only now finding out about.

Yesterday had everything to do with Ron, the coke-head truck driver I met in rehab.

Yesterday had everything to do with my mom finally seeking something deep inside her and greater than her toward the end of her life, when she told me she was at peace. And I believed her.

Yesterday had everything to do with my first son’s birth. And my second son’s. And my third son’s. Yesterday will have everything to do with why I will cry like mad when my wife dies in about a half a century but why my sadness will be only short lived.

Yesterday mattered.

I was going to go into why it was such a tough day today, because it had to do with some pretty heavy sh@#, stuff that a mere few paragraphs ago I was still upset about. But I won’t. Because all I need to do is remind myself that every year, we have what happens yesterday.

It is a promise.

That can’t be broken.

By anything.

Ever.

photo: datarec