Cheers

We knew today would be tough. Sept. 3 always is.

It was more of a whirlwind than usual.

For the first time, the anniversary of Dominic's death coincided with the first day of school. Seeing everyone's happy first day posts on social media carries some extra weight, wishing he were among them. But we had our own post to make, as Samantha was off to Grade 2.

We started the day as expected. At every meal, we do a cheers and say why we're doing it. Today, Sam said there were two reasons: Sad cheers for Dominic, happy cheers for school.

She gets it. We couldn't be more proud of her.

Then we went out to his memorial bench and tied a few gold and orange balloons to it. Gold is for childhood cancer awareness month, which happens to be September. Orange is for leukemia.

Trish stayed home, as usual. Today's her day to mourn. She usually stays in bed, off her phone. But I got a text from her at noon: "Dommy's balloons are gone."

It's happened before. Once it was the wind. Another time we saw a couple kids walking away with them. There was no wind today.

"Next year I'm gonna sit out all day and watch the park," Trish said.

I understand the allure of balloons to a kid. But it's pretty obvious they're there for a reason. The sign on the bench spells it out loud and clear: "Dominic Rooney, Oct. 12, 2012-Sept. 3, 2015. Cancer took his life, not his joy. Forever #dominicstrong"

I added the sad news to the social media post. At 5 p.m., I got another text: "Dommy's balloons are back." And this time, they had a weight attached to them in the shape of a heart, with the word love on it. Someone had gone and bought new ones.

I look out the window a half hour later. The new balloons are no longer on the bench. A group of kids is hanging around the playground. One girl, about 10 years old, is holding an orange balloon.

"I don't know how to read," she says when I ask her to read the sign for me.

I didn't have any energy left. I took the balloon home.

Does it really matter? No, I guess not. It's just foil filled with helium. But it sucks that people can't be more respectful.

We had dinner; pasta with cheese, just how Dominic liked it. And one more time, we gave a cheers. To Dominic. And to the kind people who tried to cheer us up.