Behind the Puddle

Today, Hadley is nine. She is nine. I am still trying to decide exactly when that happened because I am fairly certain she was much smaller about five minutes ago.

Today is also Carter’s birthday. They were born in different years, but shared the same October 5 birthday. Hadley and Carter shared more than a birthday, though. Carter was the girls’ first dog. For Hadley especially, he was her Carter.

She loved him deeply, and she still does. Carter died, and there is no gentle wording that changes the truth of that. He isn’t here for another October 5, but Hadley is. One birthday continues to accumulate candles while the other has become something we remember.

Somehow, both still belong to today. I’ve been thinking about that because today’s Behind the Puddle word is Continuity. The original thought for today was, “Nothing truly ends.” But I’m not sure I believe that exactly the way I once might have written it.

Some things do end. Lives end, childhoods end, relationships change, traditions stop, and last times pass without us recognizing them until much later. Death is an ending. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make grief gentler. But an ending isn’t necessarily the end of everything that came from it.

Carter’s life ended, but Hadley’s relationship with him did not simply disappear. She remembers him, talks about him, misses him, and still loves him. Every October 5, their shared birthday connects the little girl she was when Carter was here with the girl she is becoming without him physically beside her.

Maybe that’s continuity. It does not pretend that nothing ended, but recognizes what continued. Love, memory, stories, and the ways Carter became part of Hadley’s childhood all continued. Even grief is evidence of that continuity.

We don’t grieve because something meant nothing. We grieve because something mattered enough that its absence has a shape. I see continuity behind the puddle too. The leaves falling from the trees aren’t disappearing from the story of the tree, but becoming part of the ground.

The young geese I watched earlier this summer no longer exist in that tiny form because they grew. The girls aren’t the little children they were when they first started exploring this yard because they grew too. Today, Hadley becomes nine.

I can’t keep eight-year-old Hadley, just as I couldn’t keep seven-year-old, six-year-old, or five-year-old Hadley. I wouldn’t want to stop her from becoming who she is going to become just so I could hold onto who she was. But those girls aren’t gone either. They are part of the nine-year-old standing here today.

Every age came with her. She carries every experience, person, animal she has loved, ridiculous conversation, adventure, loss, and memory. Carter is part of that story.

I imagine there will always be a little tenderness around October 5. A happy birthday and a remembered birthday share the same square on the calendar. Maybe we don’t need to separate them. Today can hold both. We can celebrate Hadley completely.

We can celebrate nine years of this funny, complicated, curious, sometimes pouty, deeply feeling little human we love so much. Somewhere inside the celebration, there can also be room for Carter. His place does not have to be a sadness that takes something away from her birthday, but a love that belongs to her story.

Maybe continuity isn’t a refusal to acknowledge endings. Maybe it is understanding that our lives are made from everything that came before. People, animals, places, experiences, love, and loss become part of who continues. None of them remain exactly as they were. Neither do we.

Today, we add another candle, another year, and another chapter of Hadley. We remember a dog who once shared this date with her and who still, in his own way, does. Happy ninth birthday, Hadley, and happy remembered birthday, Carter. One life is growing forward, one life is remembered, and love continues between them.