Well.  Two weeks have passed and I haven’t been able to think of a darn thing to write.  I think this must be part of the grieving process combined with the stress of moving – numb brain.  I am enjoying my new job at the skilled nursing facility (SNF).  I have never worked at such a great place and only wish I had enough energy in this old body to do it full time.  The staff is wonderful and we actually are given enough time to give each patient our full attention.  This is unheard of. Normally in a SNF setting you are dashing between two or three patients in the gym tag-teaming them.

I started this week trying to fill in the rest of my time with home health patients, and I don’t know if that’s going to work out or not.  It is all coming back to me why I wasn’t doing that anymore.  It’s lonely out there and simply not exciting enough for me.  It doesn’t help that I’m lost most of the time and the new Android tablet I’m supposed to use is daunting.  Best to give it some time, trying not to make any rash decisions in my present fragile state.  I’m not that fragile really, it’s all getting easier.  At least I know how to get to basic locations in the area.  Still get lost occasionally but am accepting now that even though I think I should be taking a left when the GPS says right, going right is usually right.

I have been dreaming about my dear Terri.  One night this past week she came to me in a dream.  I might as well be clear right here and now that I believe in angels.  They usually appear to me in my dreams, and those stories have been told elsewhere in this blog.  Last night was not a true visit.  I was dreaming that I was at the Lafayette Art and Wine Festival and crying because last year, in September, Terri was with me – we walked around as much as we could and it was one of those “don’t forget this” experiences – she already didn’t have her normal energy and we both knew things were tenuous.  She bought a large brimmed hat for her trip to Hawaii (which she barely tolerated), we stopped into a cafe and had a bite to eat, I have a lovely photo of her from that day, in that hat, and now that hat is in my sewing room, given to me by her daughter.

The dream from last week was a visit.  We were walking in her neighborhood, it was nearing sunset and the sky was colorful, the temperature perfect.  In my dream we were hugging and she said something like “see, you will still have all this when I’m gone.”  I buried my head in her shoulder and shook my head “no.”  For one brief moment she was still alive and even in my dream I could not tell myself it was a dream.  All I could do was think “don’t go.”  The best I could do was suddenly find myself walking along the tidewater at an ocean beach.  I was walking with another dear friend – Darci – and she was comforting me.  When I woke up I was feeling – even keel – not content, but not sad either.  I sent Darci an email immediately to tell her about it and got a return email telling me about a similar dream she had when her mother died last year.  The angel coming to comfort her, as Terri did for me.  I imagine her making the rounds of everyone who loved her and misses her so deeply, comforting them in their dreams, I’m lucky I get to be one of her stops on the circuit.

Summer approaches and it will be a final time of deep grief for me.  It was about this time last summer – the Stanley Cup finals – when I started to keep Terri company most evenings.  I started the wedding quilt for Missy – still pending, the quilt not the wedding.  The summertime TV shows we enjoyed are starting up again.  The weather is getting warmer.  This will have been the beginning of her dying.  This will be the time when she stopped and said to me “we will have to remember these summer nights.”