Thanks For Being Here - Molly Merrihew's Essay for Cait & CeCe

Sometimes kids just know things. Molly Merrihew's almost-three-year-old daughter Cecelia asks out of nowhere, "Why did Caitlin die in February?" while standing on a kitchen chair, her aunt's senior photo mixed in with the daily clutter of mail and coffee mugs. Molly realizes her daughter has picked up on the rhythm of grief, the way February carries both celebration and loss—Cecilia's birthday falls just a week after the anniversary of her aunt's death. It's about how children watch us more closely than we think, how they call us back when we drift away, and how the people we've lost keep showing up in our lives, present and gone at the same time.