Thursday, June 30, 2005

Baby Steps

A beautiful sunny morning after a huge thunder storm. The last day of June - my birthday has come and gone - my first in many years without you here to celebrate with me. I had a couple of days of the "black hole" but now am centered again and ready to tackle life anew.

The house looks beautiful - so rich and so new. All very natural - wood, stone, stainless steel, glass - reds and golds. A new environment for this new life I am trying to build. Grief now is like a low grade fever or software that runs constantly in the background. I now actually have days that I can feel joy at being on the planet. I can spontaneously smile and even laugh.

Lots of unpacking to do - everything is in the garage in boxes. I went through everything really well in preparation for the remodel and will do so again as I unpack. If there is not a place in the house for it, if it doesn't have a practical purpose or a sentimental value, it is out of here. Simplify my life, that is what this part is about. No more "stuff."

The furniture is back in the living room and looks gorgeous. I am now aware that I have been moving to this place in both form and color for the last three years. It all fits and is a joy to the senses.

Life now is baby steps, baby steps, baby steps - taking good care of myself - physically, mentally, spiritually.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Crying in the Car

This afternoon Honey came to visit with beautiful roses for my birthday. The roses are peach and very lovely. I have been missing Tom off and on all day. Although, I worked in the home office and got lots done, he just came to mind a million times. Why is crying in the car such a pastime for widows?

Saturday is my birthday - the first without my darling husband. The house remodel is almost done and looks gorgeous - happy birthday, Suzann. Seems so empty somehow without Tom. This is my journey from the dark side of grief to the future - whatever it may hold. Om Shanti.

Monday, June 20, 2005

226 days more or less since you died in my arms. The winter of bottomless grief is over - the spring of beginning to emerge is passed. Summer is here, finally, but only in the season of the solstice.

The white egret flew over the house when Harry Chapin sang our song, my arms rasied to the sky - Circles - "our love is like a circle, let's go round one more time."

What now, my love? Grief comes in many disguises - sometimes as straight forward as a ragged wound - held and moaned for. Other times a bottomless pit of weeping - then time goes on and pieces of of one's life are picked up - beware the guerrilla grief. She comes and whaps you from behind when you least expect it - she is a debutaunte hopeful in her ballgown, she is a housewife content in apron with a solitary skillet in hand - she is a martini glass with perfect pick impaling a blue cheese olive - she allows you to think again and then whoof - you are back in the never, never land of "what happens next."

Perhaps I should "go back to New Mexico." Perhaps I should just trust the process.

So, the house is remodeled - just one more week and it will be transformed. What is my life without you - how shall I make the next steps - what shall I be now, without you.