Let The Sun Shine

This has been a completely miserable October. The weather man said that we have had rain on 20 of the last 27 days. If we get one more day of measureable rainfall, this will be the rainiest October on record here in Chicago. Normally, October is a beautiful month. The leaves around here have beautiful color - a lot of bright yellow, with plenty of bright red and and a couple of other colors for contrast. The days are getting shorter, but it's usually still warm out. In addition to the rain this month, we have been way below average with our temperatures. At least ten degrees below average. So being outside for soccer has been a cold, damp experience as opposed to a chance to enjoy the last warmth and sunshine before winter sets in.

My mood has matched the weather, it seems. The weather has been sad and gloomy and so have I. The hardest part of trying to move ahead with my life is not knowing how long the hurt is going to last. I am so afraid that a little bit of the hurt will never go away. Tim's birthday, our anniversary, the day of his death, those days will never be the same again - ever. Nor will any Christmas, Easter, graduation, wedding - the list is endless.

I am doing the best I can to let a little sunshine into our lives. We get together with friends regularly. We're planning our usual trip to Florida this spring to see Grandma and Grandpa. We're even hosting a Halloween Party this Saturday.

Let the sun shine...please.

For Weddings and a Funeral

In the last two days I have attended the first funeral and first wedding since Tim passed away. The wedding has been on my calendar for several weeks. I only found out about the funeral the day before. Both the wedding and the funeral were for members of Sheil, my religious community, which has been a great source of support and comfort to me.

The funeral was for Ed Mertz. Ed died one month shy of his 87th birthday. He was an elegant man with white hair and a very deep voice who greeted everyone with a smile. Ed lost his wife Grace to cancer the year Tim was first diagnosed with leukemia. It was sheer luck that I found out about Ed's death in time to attend his funeral. While those of us who were left behind will miss Ed, we also know that he died at peace with his life and looking forward to being reunited with his wife.

The wedding would not be recognized as such by many people, since it was a ceremony for two men. Will and Matt are dear friends with whom I have had the pleasure of singing every Sunday for many years. The ceremony was a beautiful statement of their love for one another. The reception was a lot of fun. I need a little more fun in my life, so I am grateful to Will and Matt for a great evening.

The Widow's Voice

You know how you're on a web page and you click on a link and that leads you to another link and so on? Well, today I ended up at a blog called the Widow's Voice. It's actually a collection of seven widows/widowers who are at various stages on their journey of love and loss. I love it. I have a couple friends who are widows. They are my talisman against the bad times. If they survived and made new lives, I can, too. This blog is a whole web site of such talismans.

www.widowsvoice-sslf.blogspot.com

Beth K, I want you know to that you were right, God moves in mysterious ways. Thank your friend for me. I found the link on her blog.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Tim always used to say that he had a mind like a steel sieve. He had a terrible time memorizing things, but once he learned something he never forgot it. And once he learned something, he was prone to repeating it, often. The movie "Ghostbusters" clearly hit Tim at an impressionable time, because he had several favorite quotes from this movie. Ghostbusters was on TV the other night and somehow Brendan and I ended up watching the last half of it. We turned it on just as all the ghosts escaped from the containment field and started terrorizing New York. In one of the next scenes, Bill Murray is attempting to explain this to the mayor. "Dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" Brendan laughed, not because the line is funny, but because he remembered Tim saying it. In the rest of the movie, we were treated to "Don't cross the streams," "Ray, this looks extraordinarily bad," and "Ray, when someone asks if you're a God...say 'Yes!'" Brendan clearly remembered Tim saying all of those at one point or another. I hope that both boys are old enough to retain those memories of their dad.