As Surely as Night Follows Day

Here we are 11 days after the twins’ birthday so that can only mean one thing; the anniversary of the day we let Doss go.

An interesting thing happened a few months ago that I’ve been saving to write about on this anniversary.

As with most, if not all, companies that have computers, my work has a 60-day password policy. So every 60 days I must come up with a new password using upper & lower case letters and at least one number and one character.

I tend to move through family member names and when the “your password expires in X days” reminder popped up on my computer, I had been thinking about Doss. So I took that as a sign and used his name as part of a cryptographic password.

So for 60 days, I typed his name several times a day. Now it’s fair to say that I normally reflect on him a couple of times a week anyway, but this two month period had me doing it all the time.

I get in to the office in the morning, I type my password.

I get up from my desk to get coffee/soda/snack, I lock my computer (we have a little competition going on where if you leave your computer unattended, you wind up with a different wallpaper on your desktop), so I have to type my password.

I get back from a meeting, I type my password.

I get back from lunch, I type my password.

So as you can imagine, there is a lot of typing of passwords.

Then, all of a sudden, I get the “your password expires in X days” reminder again. And I’m suddenly wracked with remorse; I’ve got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I tell the system to put it off for a day.

I’m horrible depressed for the entire day. And I cannot put my finger on it. So I cut out a little early and head home.

The next day my computer reminds me again that I need to change my password and again I’m hit with another wave of melancholia. And it dawns on me, losing my everyday contact with Doss’ name was just like losing him again. And while it was a little “easing” to know where the feelings were coming from, it was still a swift kick in the gut.

So there it is.

Three years later and you still bring me to tears, boy.