One Month

It's been one month since Lawrence was killed. It's hard to believe it's only been a month, it's been so crazy and busy it feels like it's been longer and shorter at the same time. In reality, this is just the first of many sad anniversaries. 
The boy who killed him's pysch assessment is up next week and we will see how they choose to proceed. Obviously he needs some help. Obviously something is wrong somewhere in there. I really sort of wish that he would just plead guilty and save the families from having to go through a trial but I don't see that happening. 
Lawrence's mom has asked me to help her write a victim's impact statement they will read at the sentencing. But like... how do you quantify it? How do you quantify your grief, your loss? How do you explain the thought of never seeing your friend get married,  have children, grow old? How can we express the tragedy that we don't even get to see him graduate from college? How do you quantify your grief? 
I've never really thought about what happens when you die and now it terrifies me. I sit up at night wondering what happened to him. Did he simply cease to exist? Is it like in the movies where he's sitting beside all of us but none of us can see him? Is he looking down on us fondly? I have no idea. 
These are the questions that truly bother me. The how and the why of his murder don't keep me up at night. I don't need to know why it happened. There will never be a satisfactory explanation. There will  never be something that makes us all stop and say, "oh. that makes sense." there just won't. It will always be a gaping hole in our lives and no amount of reasoning, explanation or punishment can fill that hole so I don't care why. I don't. 
I just want to know he's okay now. Safe and happy and that he's not hurting any more. I care more about those questions than anything else. 

My dad posted this picture from my wedding and Lawrence commented on it saying
how happy he was we got a chance to hug. <3