You know what's worse than obsessing over and perseverating about your dead child's birthday every year?

Missing it entirely.

I don't really know how it happened. I knew it was coming up. I knew what today's date was. I've just been doing so much and moving so fast that I never put two and two together until The KingofHearts pointed it out to me late this afternoon. I'm pissed that my work life has taken over so much lately that I can barely shower on a daily basis much less remember to pause and mark a date that was so important in my own personal history. The only things that get my attention these days are the ones that rise up to stare me headlong in the face and beg for it. All I can say is it's a good thing the cats and the kids can vocalize, otherwise they'd probably starve. So while I worked out elaborate celebrations for The Dormouse and The Caterpillar, quiet little Gillian, I'm sorry to say, only got an afterthought this year. She deserves a hell of a lot more than that.

For a long time, and I mean years here, a day didn't go by without a thought, a mention, some kind of fleeting reference to the short time we had together. Eventually, it got... well, it never got easier... it just got easier to live with.

Ten years seems simultaneously like too much time and not enough has passed. A decade. A tenth of a century. It's so big and so small at the same time.

What would she be doing now at ten? Driving us crazy with a ridiculous obsession for Justin Beiber or some other badly-coiffed TigerBeat star? Would she be practicing inappropriate cheer leading moves alongside The Dormouse in the living room? Or would she have moved on from there, trying to con us into buying her a cell phone? I'm sure whatever it would be, I'd find no shortage of words to use to complain about it. All I know is I'd really like to be able complain about whatever that might have been right now.