Six months

It is exactly six months since Chuck left me, transitioned,, passed away, died.
And last night for I think the first time - I had a dream about him.  He was in it twice.  Once he was walking up stairs in an office building.  He had a beard and I tried to talk to him but he couldn't hear me.  And I just shrugged and said - yeah - it is hard to get his attention.

And the second time I was somewhere and I knew I had a choice of visiting him (he was in an apartment) or going home.  And in the dream I thought  that he really wasn't there even though he looked like it was him - but he was dead so I might as well go home.\

This was a very complicated dream with me at a doctor who was going to do surgery on me and this was just a part of it.  But as I write this I think it is my subconscious, or the "dreamgiver" - telling me to let go and continue to live my new life in my home without him.  I didn't cry in the dream, but I am teary as I write this.

Saturday Kacey and Alyse came over and we started getting ready for a big garage sale that will probably happen in late July.  We brought all of his cookbooks up from the basement and did lots of organization and - under her direction - throwing away of materials.  We also went through all my pictures and reorganized them.  And when we were all done we played pounce (nertz to you!)  I continue to reorganize my home and putting pictures in new places and making it mine and not ours.  It really is a metaphor of the change that is going on inside me.

I was thinking today as I was walking downstairs to write this that I can live my life and feel okay and then remember  that  Chuck is gone or  I remember that  I live alone - or remember that I am 70.  Somehow these  thoughts make me sad and anxious.  And if I just "live" I am okay.  I don't know whether this is a process of integrating my new identity or an unhealthy thought pattern to be stopped in my tracks everyt ime I remember these facts.  Maybe everyone is like this - or I am living into my new reality VERY slowly.  It feels like I don't know anything anymore.

Yesterday I drove with Melanie to Camp Christian and we did the" worship in the woods" for six people - including us. I liked it regardless - I like being in the woods and being forced to slow down and just breathe in the wonder of creation, I like doing lectio divina with God's word and I like making a circle and saying the Lord's prayer together and then hugging.  This is what I like so I will continue to do it for the rest of the summer - trusting that  I can find someone to fill in for me when I am on vacation.

Tonight I am going out to dinner with Melanie, Erin, and Audrey.  We four were together when Chuck died and I want to honor that holy evening.  And talk about it.  And have a drink in his memory.  I think rituals help.  I hope so.

Here is a blessing for me today from my book Silver Linings:  Blessings for Shadow Times by Maxine Shonk

May God who knows your GRIEF bless you with the gradual awareness that there is no dying that cannot be tranformed into life beyond imagining.
May God rise and be revealed to you in your loss just as surely as the flower emerges from the dying seed and the butterfly from the abandoned cocoon.
May this ever faithful God be with you and gently stir hope into your grieving.
may the FAITHFUL God bless you.