"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

My new favorite book is about a little boy named Oskar whose father dies in the World Trade attack. For the next year he travels around New York City searching for the lock to a key that belonged to his father. But soon, more than anything, the search turns into a healing journey for his own life. Through each stranger Oskar encounters, he begins to comprehend his father's death and slowly processes his own grief. Though it's a fictional story, seeing through the eyes of a 9-year-old also living with deep grief was moving and inspiring. I found myself crying and laughing at the same time at his quirky yet compassionate descriptions.

Oskar is an inventor. He is very imaginative and always creating new inventions in his head. In one chapter, he invents a machine for ambulances...

"What about a device that knew everyone you knew? So when an ambulance went down the street, a big sign on the roof could flash
DON’T WORRY! DON’T WORRY!
if the sick person’s device didn’t detect the device of someone he knew nearby. And if the device did detect the device of someone he knew, the ambulance could flash the name of the person in the ambulance, and either
IT’S NOTHING MAJOR! IT’S NOTHING MAJOR!
Or, if it was something major,
IT’S MAJOR! IT’S MAJOR!
And maybe you could rate the people you knew by how much you loved them, so if the person in the ambulance detected the device of the person he loved the most, or the person who loved him the most, and the person in the ambulance was really badly hurt, and might even die, the ambulance could flash
GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!
One thing that’s nice to think about is someone who was the first person on lot’s of people’s lists, so that when he was dying, and his ambulance went down the streets to the hospital, the whole time it would flash
GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!"

And another invention:

"In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York is in heavy boots."

These are my two favorite passages of the book. For one, I can only imagine that Micah's ambulance would have shouted GOODBYE I LOVE YOU! for many, many hours straight...and to many, many people. Maybe it also would have shouted THANKS FOR MAKING MY LIFE SO FUN!...and PLEASE KEEP HAVING FUN FOR ME, IT WOULD MAKE ME HAPPY! Or maybe PEACE OUT HOMIES, IT'S BEEN REAL!

I also love the idea of the Reservoir of Tears.
Lately my Reservoir of Tears is at low-tide, which is good. Being surrounded by friends and family has been great and I'm so thankful for the supportive community around me. As I told a friend lately, I feel like my soul is being filled up with energy like a gas tank.

Bittersweet.

Everything is bittersweet.
I've stepped back into this crazy world
Where memories of you are accompanied by an absence of you--
And I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

This evening we gathered around your grave and sang,
And then watched as 19 balloons lifted into the sky,
Spinning away until they were just tiny dots on the horizon.

Later we gathered in your living room and
Laughed as your baby videos flickered on the TV screen.
I can't help but think of what a joy you must have been
To your parents 19 years ago, their first baby boy
Bundled up in a hospital blanket and blinking at the new world
Around him.

When the movies ended we sat in a biting silence
That filled the room, each of us knowing that we
Were thinking how wonderful it would be to see you
Alive and laughing, just one more time, like in those clips.
And how shockingly-wrong it was to celebrate your life
But not have you there.

Last night on the long drive home
I saw a shooting star fall across the sky
And I couldn't help but remember the star we both witnessed
Falling over the ocean as we flew to Germany.

My memories of you, of us together, have filled me with gratitude
And I am so blessed by your life. I want to bottle that star and
Save it for later, just to remind myself of the beauty
You've shown me and the twinkling hope you'd want me to have,
Even amongst the dark sadness.

Finals week, here I come.

It will be a push to get through this last week and a half of stress, late nights, and finals. I can already feel myself losing energy, focus, and sanity...

But my motivation is that when is that it's all done, I'm homeward bound again; and this time it's for a good long time. And I will finally be surrounded by the friends and family that I need.

However, the holidays are looming in the distance, and for the first time in my life I'm actually dreading for them to come...who would've imagined I'd ever actually dread a holiday?
It's just that Micah won't be here.
And next week will be his birthday.
And around this time last year, we were preparing to go to Germany together...
Everything is just a jumble of mixed-feelings and my insides are turning. Part of me just wants to fast-forward it all so I don't have to feel anything.

But all-in-all, I'm ready to step back into the world of grief that home is, though it will be difficult. I'm ready to feel 100% "into" it again, whereas at college I've been numbing it to some extent, in order to survive. And most of all I'm ready to just be in the world Micah lived in, because if anything that will be comforting in itself.