Today my oldest child is 18 years old. He’s a full adult instead of a quasi-adult. (Scotland has some interesting laws that create a soft-opening for being an adult at 16.) I think he is magnificent. I think he is worth every hour I have put into him. I only regret that I didn’t have more to give him. Well, and I regret that Noah is not here to watch him progress into manhood.

I want to write a lot about him because he’s so cool. He’s a writer! A good one! He has an intense online following. He writes about how traumatised people exist in the world. He’s a fiction writer. He says he bases a lot of his characters on me and that’s complicated to think about. I feel humbled and flattered. I’m glad he likes me so much and that he sees me as a person who overcomes even when it is terribly painful.

It’s fun negotiating with him as a housemate. It’s interesting watching the ways that it feels like we didn’t lose Noah because my son is so much like him. He really is a chip off the old block. I am so grateful that Noah left three reflections of him on this earth. I am glad my son got to share so much with him. EC went with Noah to work conferences over the last few years of Noah’s life and it was a wonderful bonding experience for both of them. I am so happy they had such a precious relationship together.

I do wish Noah had not said so many times to our children that the best thing he could do for their motivation in life is to die. That was, in retrospect, not a nice thing.

Today my son is feeding people pie. He says he wants to do all the work for his 18th birthday and after this he will again accept help. There is shepherds pie, pot pie, and fruit pie and I think a custard pie. He hates cake.

I don’t think my son is on the trajectory Noah followed when it comes to getting a “good job” and making a lot of money. Instead he is happier and more peaceful than Noah or I have ever been. He feels secure in a way we have never been. The closest I came to that security was being with Noah and now that is gone forever. I sometimes wonder what security is going to feel like in my body in the future. I don’t have much of it now. I have vague hope for the future but no certainty.

I am kind of glad he asked to have one more year of home education because the first year after Noah’s death was such an intense black hole of learning nothing. It’s going to be interesting negotiating this dynamic because I won’t be as instructive or demanding. I’ve been pulling my demands back very consciously for a while now. He has to fly on his own.

Only 10 years to go before I am done with the Indenture. Being done with 18/28 years is pretty good. I’m not quite in the home stretch but there’s a lot of progress. I feel good about the results I see. I’m proud of my children. I don’t need them to be high achievers. That’s not part of our family values. Sure, Noah was a high achiever but it was because he burned like the sun. He needed it for himself. He passed on enough to keep us safe fairly indefinitely.

Marrying Noah and raising children together was still the best decision of my life. I had such a good partner. My babies had a good father. Now we have to keep moving without him. Life isn’t fair and no one gets what they deserve. For a little while we got to live with a glorious and inspirational soul. It was such a privilege.

Living with Noah was so good. Living without him is hard. I keep hearing the Garth Brooks song If Tomorrow Never Comes and breathing slowly and deeply. I know how much he loved me. I know that I had a great love. When the spiteful bitch ex-girlfriend group got together to bitch about me stealing him three days after his death I couldn’t help but think that he didn’t break up with them because I made him. Instead he backed away from those groups because he found the person he wanted. I know that he moved us to Scotland because he wanted me to not have a huge network of people. He didn’t want to have a huge network. He wanted me. He wanted to be alone with me as much as possible for the rest of his life. We did that.

I’m glad that I buckled down and kept myself to the house for the years he wanted me to. It was worth it. We have children who glow with certainty of place and love. We did that one day at a time. On this day I can’t help but think about how lucky I am that I got to do all this with Noah. I am so lucky.