At this time six years ago…I don’t normally use that phrase much at this time of year, even in my head, but the past few days my head’s been filled with it. “At this time, six years ago…” “I was hugging Sullivan good night for the last time.” “The phone rang and woke me up with news about Sullivan.” “I was choosing what to wear to go see my dead son, adamantly avoiding anything black.”
The day he died, I wore khaki pants and a white shirt. I consciously avoided wearing black. I didn’t think he’d appreciate any of us wearing such a dark, gloomy color. Six years later, we all make an effort to wear orange on October 1st. Orange for our Sullivan, who loved the color orange. Maybe it was the only color he could distinguish, but maybe he just liked the bright, vibrant color. Either way, we wear orange. Jillian wasn’t able to wear orange today, because it’s Wednesday. On Wednesdays, safety patrols have to wear their uniform (navy pants and white shirt), so instead, she fastened an orange ribbon on her shirt…we passed around orange ribbons at Sullivan’s memorial service for people to wear.
Orange. Such a lively color. Sully loved orange.
