It's been over three months now since Chris died. Off and on I've wanted to write about him, but it's hard to find the right words. But, even if I get the words all wrong I think it's still important to try. I think about him almost every day, but most of the time it's still not real to me that he's gone.

I was at the gym on the day that it had been three months since his death and in the middle of lifting a weight, the thought that Chris isn't here just hit me hard and I almost started crying right there. I don't have the same darkness or fog about it that I did in the first few weeks, but I still find myself thinking about him and feeling sad at odd moments.

I hear stuff all the time that makes me think of him. On NPR, an author was talking about her mother who had died and the "mystery of absence". How can she have been here and now she's not? How could Chris have been here and now he's not? At church, I was reading a visiting teaching message about understanding that you are a child of God and treating your body like a temple and I just started crying. It was a message I've heard literally hundreds of times before and was never moved by. But looking at it through the lens of suicide put a terribly different spin on the words. I listened to an interview with David Foster Wallace (an author who recently killed himself) and thought of Chris and thought of Wallace's family. David and I watched a Woody Allen movie where one of the characters says, "I want to want to live." I want Chris to want to live. But the decision is already made.

What's strange is that I'll think about him in terms of how we could still help him. What could made a difference. It's a hard thing to let go even though it's so pointless.

Sometimes I think about the peace that I felt at the prospect of dying. How grateful I felt for my life. How 28 years felt like a huge gift. And it almost makes me feel a little better, that maybe that was the kind of peace that Chris had come to. Except, I got to live 10 more years. I don't know what Chris would have done with 10 more years, but I don't know how he could regret living them.

I do hope Chris has peace now. I think he must have peace now, but it is at such a terrible cost.

For the last couple of Fridays when I go to the gym instead of stretching, lifting, and then running, I just stretch and run (and stretch again - stretching is my new favorite. I used to hate it because I'm not very flexible, but that seems silly now. Who am I trying to impress when I'm stretching? You can't win stretching).

Today I ran six miles. In 59 minutes. And it felt incredible. When I was done, I felt like I could've kept going, but I've only been running four or five miles at a time and I didn't want to overdo it. While I was running, I realized why the mom of the Masche sextuplets trained for and ran a marathon around the babies' first birthday. You can literally run away from stress.

When my older girls were babies, I didn't start working out seriously until they were 18 months old. Thinking about that makes me wonder what my rush was to get back into it with these babies. And, why I'm working so much harder than I usually do.

1) After the babies were born I felt terrible. I was stooped over and literally couldn't get myself to stand up straight. My back hurt, my ribs hurt, and I felt weak. I was lucky enough to lose the baby weight quickly (but it was lucky like it's lucky to get food poisoning or a tape worm - after you're better the weight loss feels like a bonus but in the moment you just want to feel good).

2) I NEEDED to do something for myself that had nothing to do with babies or work and working out was the only thing I felt like I could do without feeling guilty.

What I didn't know is what a great stress reducer it would be.

The first time I started running regularly was a little over 20 years ago. My favorite album to run to was Sinead O'Connor's Lion and the Cobra. I put it on my ipod shuffle a few months ago and I run to it almost every day. It's good to feel as good as I did 20 years ago. Better, actually. Because I'm not running away from my angst about my freshman boyfriend!

I'm not sure what my point is. I just feel good about getting stronger and faster and that I can be in this place right now. As crazy and busy as my life is, I'm happy. And, I'm glad I can run.