HAP

Dear Tammy, Let me tell you about snakes. They have to shed their skins as they grow. When the skin starts to get too tight they start to get restless and increasingly ornery. They can't get comfortable. They just want out. And they have to get out or the skin of that old life will strangle them. I get restless myself with stuff sometimes--especially--WARNING:ABOUT TO SWITCH METAPHORES--when the chrysalis starts to feel too tight. Yes, I think butterflies go through something similar. And they equally have to break out or face real issues. So do baby birds, for that matter. I am always amazed anything that big can live in anything that small. But i know what you mean about feeling like days vanish--and that you are making no progress on anything. The truth, I suspect, is that you have actually done a great deal. You have two daughters to take care of--and they seem as ok as two teenagers could be under the circumstances. And you tamed the jeep . And you have added a lot to the store of wisdom here. It takes a lot of energy just to keep moving forward and stay positive. You constantly are looking out for the other wounded ducks in this menagerie, demonstrating a level of self-sacrifice and compassion that is hard to equal. You've done that despite the sucking chest wound where they removed a part of your figurative heart a year ago. My brother, who is a police lt. in Seattle--and took the Cpt.'s exam last week--was here for my retirement and the Relay. Sunday night we were up talking. He has worked more murder scenes than he wants to think about. He lost four friends in a shooting out there last year. We were talking about PTSD--which he says he has all the symptoms of--and I realized most of what I read here sounds very much the same--especially for those of us who dealt--as you did--with a sudden and very visible death. The more he talked, the more it aligned with a lot of what I have felt these last seven months--and a lot of what you described in one of your posts about not being able to get that last few hours out of your head. It isn't combat--but so much of it feels similar. Mary is right, I think. This healing takes the time that it takes. A year in the hospital--if we came out in one piece--would not seem like wasted time to us. We might want to have done other things with that time, but we have to play the hand we have been dealt. Now we may be feeling that we're all out of aces--to steal from Willie Nelson--and at the risk of setting off a small storm of personal grief--Jane started singing the gambler one night before she had one of her coma events--but you still have some cards in your hand that you can keep. We all do. Every hand is a winner--and every hand is a loser. What makes a difference is how we play those cards. I am a Star Trek addict. I was trying to put together a list of quotes and ideas earlier that would help me define who I am again. In the Wrath of Khan, Kirk is feeling very down on himself. He has lost most of his crew, his ship is crippled, and he is trapped in the middle of a moon with no way out. Dr. McCoy says to him something along the lines of "You have spent your whole life turning no chance into a fighting chance. You will do that again here." In the throes of grief we frequently feel there is no way we can survive this--that we have no chance. And that is ok, so long as we do not give into that despair that will make our cards--no matter how good they are--into losers. You've played Leonard McCoy for a lot of people here Tammy--me among them. This is our time to carry you for a little while. A friend of mine once told me I was really good at giving--but that I needed to learn that sometimes taking was as important as giving. So take what you need the next little while--and don't worry about being weak or strong. We all know you here. We have all been where you are--or will be there eventually. And we'll need that giving spirit every bit as much. Peace, Harry

Friends, I know I have been away for awhile. Relay for Life and teaching a class pretty much burned me out. The day before Jane died I caught myself walking to the cafeteria at one point. I looked at how slowly and painfully I was moving and asked myself when it was I had gotten old. I have had more aches and pains this spring than I care to think about--but I just chocked it up to the fact I am in my late 50s and that the years were finally catching up to me. I also thought part of the problem was I wasn't sleeping well. This week, despite more sleep, I felt exhausted when I started out the door for my walk. Yesterday, I pulled a muscle in my back--after stretching, mind you--while pulling weeds. Today, i woke up with the back still not right but went for my walk anyway. I did decide not to do yard work and have been working at mental things all day--I'll put them on a different post--and thought my back felt better--until I tried making dinner. But I thought it was just me. Now all of you chime in with your aches--and it suddenly makes sense to me that even after a solid eight hours I am still tired. I am tensed up all the time. I'm wearing myself out with stupid muscle tension my grief won't let me let go of. I did yoga for years--and meditation. But when Jane got sick I slipped out of meditation. And I have not done enough yoga for years because of the time constraints of work. But I am going to have to get back to both. Tammy, if you find a yoga class, let me know. The discpline will help me get back into it. But I may start beforehand--if I can get this cranky back to co-operate. Peace, Harry (Who is sitting here shaking his head about his own foolishness.)

Dear Kay, This is awful. I wish here was something I could do. I can think of no one i know in Oregon, but I will ask around among my relatives who are all in the Seattle area and have been there for years. Maybe they know someone in your neck of the woods. Keep doing what you can with the arm. You are in all our prayers. Peace, Harry

Dear Melina, If it is any consolation, I find it much harder to function --and that i am much more prone to meltdowns--when i am exhausted. And the west to east travel is worse for jet-lag and disorientation than east to west. Give yourself a few days to recover. It sounds very much like the trip was a positive one and that Thyge was there with you the entire time. Take what solace you can in that. You are getting stronger. Peace, Harry

Dear Tammy, I wondered if you would get there Friday, but after our conversation at Taunton I was pretty sure you were not going to be up to it. I think, though, you did the right thing for you at this moment in time. It would have been very hard. The intensity of the whole experience overwhelmed me several times over the course of the night. I cannot imagine I would be ready if this were being held the first week in December with the first anniversary looming--and this having been one of our last times together. We raised just over $4200 between Taunton and Fall River. And they gave us the Team Spirit Award--largely because we always had someone on the track--right up until the closing ceremony at 10 a.m. Only my brother and I were left by that point. When they announced it I couldn't move--I was that stunned. The Fall river Relay made $280,000 this year--$40,000 more than their goal. I was really glad we had done Taunton. To confront that level of intensity on the first time would really have been tough to do. As it was, I really felt overwhelmed by everything. Having to leave for 3 hours for the retirement dinner did not help--that was an emotionally intense event as well. I have to go to BU to teach again tomorrow. I just checked in to see what was going on and knew immediately I had to reply to this. I know this is a tough time for you. If you need anything, let me know. Peace, Harry

Friends, Need to rest up for Friday, so i will keep this brief-besides i had my quota of words for the week with my long Saturday post. If i disappear for a few days blame it on cleaning out my room at work and getting ready for relay. i will try to at least read entries the next few days. The buttons arrived today for the walk. They are beautiful--the best rendition of the logo yet. That was a big up on a day that was frustrating up to that point. Made all the frustrations dissolve. Hope you all have lots of positive energy the next few days. Peace, Harry

Congratulations Brian. Harry

Dear Melina, Congratulations. i count four big events: dancing and laughing are both major moves--in some respects even bigger than the graduation and wedding. Rejoice in all these blessings. It sounds like you found a rainbow to walk on. And i agree with Tammy: Maybe you are looking too hard. I only found love when I stopped looking for it. Signs sometimes work the same way. Peace, Harry

Good for you Tammy. My brother is flying in this week for my retirement dinner. My niece is coming down from Boston for the same event. Then we are going back to the Relay for Life in Somerset with as many faculty as we can get to make the trip. And a hummer landed on the shepherd hook on the deck while i was sitting there with my cup of ice cream. He barely noticed i was there despite the fact he looked right at me. They are getting a bit less shy about being around me. The cookout with my in-laws went fine. they were good company. We watched part of the US Open together. Really dull when someone has a six stroke lead to start and then moves it out to eight with barely a stumble. I went to a dance recital based on the Lion King that featured some of my students last night. Some of them actually dance quite well. What i was afraid was going to be an obligation event turned out to be very pleasant. I am starting to pull out of my funk as well. I feel a bit better today than yesterday--and yesterday was better than Saturday. I just have to remember to deal with one hour at a time again for a while. Peace, Harry

Dear Brian, You did not fail. You did all you humanly could. That is not failure. That is love. Peace, Harry

Friends, Today was graduation day at the high school Jane and I have taught at for parts of four decades. It was the last time i will be there as a teacher. My last day is Thursday. Jane and I had planned to retire this year. For me, including time as a substitute, next week will conclude 35 years in classrooms--27 in this one. For Jane, this would have been her 31st year--all in the same building. As I stood in the hallway waiting for the teachers to line up to enter the auditorium together i found the emotions nearly overwhelming. I teared up several times just standing there in the lobby. But I was fine when we entered to sit down. Then the speeches began. The salutatarian talked about Jane and what her loss had meant to all of them. The principal talked about how Jane's illness and death had shaped the year. The superintendent recited a poem he had written for the students about graduation, but the reprise--about how we had hoped to continue their journey with them, stabbed me through the heart. The class president talked about how Jane's death had taken a part of my heart--and how her death had affected them as a class--and ended with the phrase she gave her students every time they wanted to give up: We are not wimps, we are Wildcats. One of the kids called her among the best teachers she had ever had by far. i could not have held back the tears even if i had tried. A friend at the far end of the row said she had looked over at me several times--worried about how i was handling this since she was reduced to tears three separate times. After the ceremony, a number of kids i did not even know--at least not in terms of having them in class--came up to me and thanked me for being a role model for them because of how I had handled myself during her illness and after her death. Then it was time for me to go. I had started to walk to my car when i heard my editor in chief calling to me. She caught up to me and handed me a lei made out of fabric. Someone had flown out from Hawaii to see her graduate and had made everyone leis on the flight--including one for me. There was a get together for teachers at another teacher's house, but i did not want to be there. i had some errands to run--and as a friend said, there were other things that needed to be done this weekend. The Greater Fall River Relay for Life is Friday and there were some things i needed to pick up for that. While i was out I found some green thumb specials Jane would not have been able to walk away from--including some wave petunias at less than half price. I bought them and will have to find time to pot them up tomorrow morning. My in-laws are coming for the annual Father's Day cookout. I planted some perennials in one of the beds i am going to expand into a memorial garden for Jane later this summer. I put in some glads and some dahlias and some marigolds in the cutting garden. I refilled the hummingbird feeders and the bird feeder the other birds ravage on a daily basis--and watched a robin use the back of the vegetable garden where there is some dried grass as his personal Home Depot. I watched him fly into a neighbor's yard and into a shrub where he is building a nest. Jane and i sometimes called graduation day the day we kicked the baby birds out of the nest. It doesn't sound very nurturing, but letting go is the only way we could ensure their growth would not be stunted. We both encouraged kids to go away to school because that way they would be away from both parents and friends and would be free to grow into the person they wanted to be rather than the person their friends and parents wanted them to remain. Today, I feel like the bird that has been kicked out of the nest. It hurts like hell. But a part of me knows that it is time for me to grow in a new way. There are things i have learned in this last year--about myself, about my friends, about my past--that only something this traumatic could teach me. But god how i hate the price of that knowledge. I remember the days before Jane and i met--how isolated and alone I was. i had given up on love. I had given up on ever finding anyone who could make me want to sing again--dance again--live again. I was so close to turning into someone who was just passing through life on his way to death. Jane gave me my life back. She said I gave her hers back--that there was no joy in her life before we met--and that our 21 years of marriage had made her a better person. I cannot speak to that. i only know that I am a far better person because of the life we lived together--and i hope that the same was true for her. Now i am alone again. But i will not simply wait for death. Death will come when it comes--and i will fight dirty to keep living. Not because i do not miss my wife and do not wish we were still together, but because there is more to do with this life than waiting for death. Near the end of my time after graduation congratulating kids, one of my students--a kid i met just five months ago came up to me. "Thank you," he said, "for seeing the person in me that i didn't see and helping me realize that person exists and matters." That is the work my wife and i were born to do. And while i will no longer do that work with high school students, I will continue to do it in other places and in other ways. There is other work that needs doing. As I said to a parent this week, the only thing i am really doing is giving up teaching high school kids. I am just moving into a different line of work--work that needs to be done every bit as much as teaching kids. There is a story that regularly makes the rounds in some Christian circles. A man has died and finds himself on a beach with Christ. He looks back along the beach and sees two sets of footsteps covering most of the beach. He knows that those footprints mark the idea that Christ was with him throughout his life. Then he sees some sections where there are only one set of footprints. He turns to Christ and says, where were you in those times--why did you leave me alone? And Christ looks at him and says, I never left you. Those are the places i carried you. I am not a traditional Christian. I am not a traditional anything. My grandfather told me at a very young age that i would have to find my own path. Jane and i were similar in that respect: we were both doomed to find our own paths. We walked together in our bodies in this lifetime for 21 years. There were times she carried me and times i carried her. And their were times our God carried us both. But God only carries us when we truly need to be carried.(S)he is a caring parent, but one who knows that sometimes, in order to grow, we have to be left alone--or at least have the illusion that we are alone. Sometimes the baby birds have to fly on their own if they are ever going to mature into adult creatures capable of carrying the load they need to carry. Jane is still with me. A friend asked me before we walked into the auditorium if I were going to be able to get through this. I told him i was carrying two souls in this body today--that is how close she felt to me. Sometimes she is more distant. Sometimes it feels as though she is not there at all. Then i realize that she is giving me the space to grow--to fly on my own--but that she and our deity are watching that flight and will catch me if I fall. I am like an infant in this new world--as she is like an infant herself in the new world she has awakened in. Each day we both try to walk--and gradually we will reach the point that we can indeed walk again--independent of each other--but longing for the return of that connection which has always sustained us. In the interim, there is much for us to learn. For me, among the new teachers are the people in this group. I listen to what you say and what you think and observe what you do. From each of these things I learn about this new place I must reside for a time. But every dream, every experience--every solo trip to the supermarket--has things in it that force me to learn. That is the point to human life--to learn that which we cannot learn as creatures of pure spirit. As Thoreau and Emerson say repeatedly in their essays on Transcendentalism, our souls descend to meet. There are things we can only learn in this form--and one of those things is dealing with death--both as the one who dies and as the one who lives. Buddhists say that life is suffering--and they are right. But life is also joy. It is how we evolve as spiritual beings--and it is only through living in the physical world that that evolution takes place. And that evolution advances through both joy and suffering. I learn from failure and from pain--but I also learn through success and through pleasure. There has to be a balance between the two. Jane spoke the truth when she said our bodies are only vessels for our souls to journey in. But the soul loves the body--and the soul and body love the company of other souls and bodies. If the body were merely a vessel, we would not grieve those we lose. Knowing that we are creatures of pure spirit we would know that the body is of no consequence. But we are not creatures of pure spirit and when the bodies of those we love die we mourn the loss of that body even if we know the soul is immortal. Like the woman whose son is in Afghanistan, we miss the physical presence of our beloved just as much as we miss their spirits. So though we would like to embrace the joy implicit in the idea of the immortality of the soul--that our loved ones continue without us in a world free of the suffering that human life requires--and know that we should rejoice in their joy at being in that better place--they do so without the bodies that we have grown to love and embrace every bit as much as we love and embrace their souls. Even the promise that we will eventually be rejoined in that spiritual world does not do much to ease the pain of that loss. The reality is that when we see them again they will either be in a purely spiritual form--or will inhabit a new body that we may not recognize them in. The loss is real. the pain is real. The sorrow is real. But what we do with those things matters. Do we learn from them? Or do we get lost in them? Sometimes getting lost in those feelings is a necessary part of the learning process. Sometimes, however, it is not. Sometimes we get caught up in the cycle of pain and can find no way out. The fear, the hurt, the loss overwhelm us and we lose all concept of who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming. When grief defines us entirely we need that divine hand to lift us from our grief and carry us the distance that has to be covered to lessen the pain to the point we can walk on our own again. But the existence of that divine hand does not relieve us of the responsibility of trying to walk--of trying to work our way through the grief. Eventually that divinity wants us to be able to walk again on our own--and may set us down and insist we try to walk before we believe we are ready. We have to recognize that we are children in this place--and that the adult--God, if you will--may know better than we do what we need to be doing in order to move forward. My students constantly whine about the amount of work I require of them--they want to read in class, write in class, talk about anything other than the book at hand in class. My job as teacher is to push them forward. i nurture them when that seems the right thing to do, but sometimes I have to put them on their own if they are going to mature as readers, writers, and thinkers. My students may like other teachers more, but i did not come into this profession to be liked--I came into this profession to move people's minds forward. God works in the same way. We are not always prepared for what gets placed before us. I was certainly not ready to deal with Jane's death. But i have to deal with the fact of her absence--the fact of my enormous loss. I do not get to choose what happens to me any more than my students get to choose the books we read or the essays they need to write. i have to face the reality of this new life. It is not easy, but it is what is required, Like a classroom full of students, we try to help each other figure out how to answer the questions and problems the deity puts in front of us, but ultimately we face the final tests alone. We have collective work to do, but we are individually responsible for what we do with the life we are given. We are like the three servants in the parable: We have been given a number of talents to do with as we will. But when the master returns we have to give an accounting of what we have done with the coin. If we have done nothing but bury ourselves in our grief that accounting will not go well for us. But if we have worked to overcome that pain--have worked to use the knowledge we have gleaned to help others in their grief--have learned the lessons that grief exists to teach us--then we will become graduates of this school and be ready to take on the greater tasks that lie ahead of us--if not in this life then in the next. We have to be patient with ourselves. That knowledge and wisdom will not come in a day or a week or a month or a year. It will come in its own time. We cannot speed up the process any more than an infant can speed up the rate at which it learns to walk--no matte how much it wants to. We have to crawl before we can walk--and move on our bellies like a reptile before we can even crawl. We will weep. We will be angry. We will be frustrated. But each day will bring with it new knowledge, new hope, and new understanding. We will get through this. Our advantage here is that we have a whole group of us experiencing the same thing. The teacher has told us--even encouraged us--to share our notes and our knowledge and experiences and our observations. Together, we are stronger than we are alone. We will get through this. I know that once again I have written too much. i know, that once again, I've gone too far. I know, too, now this is finished, that it could as easily be a reply on What I have learned. But it did not start out that way. It is only through writing that I discover what it is I think and what it is I believe. My god it is 12:30 and i promised myself an early night. Argh. Peace, Harry

friends, Today was graduation day--my first without Jane--and my last as a high school teacher. I am going to write a longer, separate post on that elsewhere tonight. As i got into the car NPR was playing a country song. All i caught was the chorus, "i may not be an angel, but i love you anyway." Later I caught a piece of a polka sung by a woman about how she would, "Love you forever." There was Jane again--playing into my head and reminding me that no matter how alone I am, she is there. Also as i left school this afternoon, there was a doe just the other side of the lights. I have not seen a deer anywhere since Jane died. Later, in a very built up area, I saw another doe. The last time I saw a deer was driving Jane into Dana Farber. There were three of them up on a hill--a doe, a buck, and a fawn. They were up on top of a hill well off the road and turned and vanished over the rise as we drove by. I went by her grave this morning before graduation. the flowers i left there last Sunday were still there--and strangely looking as fresh as they were a week ago. It was a day of small miracles--and i am thankful for every one of them--even the ones that reduced me to tears. Peace, Harry

Friends, I went out this afternoon with friends from school. Two of us are retiring at the end of the week so there was some melancholy to the meeting. But we laughed at memories of people we have worked with and the strange things that happen over a career in teaching. It is good to have friends in both these worlds. Thank all of you for your friendship here. Peace, Harry

Dear Tammy, I wish there were something I could say that would really take this pain away from you. I know stress can trigger really nasty grief-storms. i am convinced my own recent struggles are partly the result of stress and exhaustion. I even had to take a nap earlier because I could not keep my eyes open. But this is not about my struggles--which are minor compared to what you are describing. The best i can do here is put my electronic arms around you in a comforting hug and wish you the strength and faith of a mustard seed. You will stay in my thoughts, meditations and prayers throughout this night. And I will check in on you here every little while tonight. Peace, Harry

Friends, Thank you for your thoughts and support. Kay, I'm sorry your experience was so bad. In fact, from what you all say I seem to have been very lucky. I wondered about that, then realized I had, in a sense been subconsciously auditioning Nancy for the last several months since she is the facilitator of the support group I attend. I had another person recommended to me several months ago by one of the counselors at school, but did not call them because things were too hectic. Then this craziness hit last week and i knew I needed help and did not want to wait for it to get worse. Nancy had offered several times to all of us that if we hit a tough patch between meetings we should call her. It was a good decision. I have come to realize tonight that part of what is going on is that graduation and Father's day are this weekend. We attended graduation together every year o launch our baby birds into the sky. here were years one or the other of us could not attend, but those were the exception rather than the rule. And we did a cookout for her father every Father's Day. My own father is on the West Coast. We would then watch the final round of the US Open with her family. I am having her father and sister over on Sunday. The cookout will be less elaborate--we usually did a clam boil--but I just don't have that level of energy after this week. There was a move among faculty today for us all to wear our Walking with Jane t-shirts to graduation--a move I think we successfully scotched. I was touched by the idea, but tomorrow belongs to our students and their families. Jane would have preferred the focus to remain on them. As someone apparently said, I would be there in my three-piece suit tomorrow, and she would have been in her suit and heels. Anything else just would not be right. I may not have time tomorrow or Sunday to write much here. The year ends next week and i have grades to finish and finals to write, give, and grade--as well as my room at school to close down a last time. We put out our last newspaper of the year--and of my career--today. None of that seems particularly real. I expected it to feel ...I don't know...but it was basically anti-climactic. Peace, Harry

Friends, Today i am thankful that I sometimes escape my own foolishness long enough to try something new regardless of my doubts. I went to my first one-on-one counseling session this afternoon--and i feel so much better tonight after nearly a week of rolling with depression. Maybe that light up ahead is not a train coming down he tunnel after all. Peace, Harry

Friends, My work as a teacher sometimes keeps me way too busy for my own good. I promised myself back in February that I would find some solo grief counselor time soon. That did not happen until today. Because last night was awards night at school I had to skip my regular physical grief group meeting last night--and after last weekend I really needed to in the same room with people who get it. But Jane and i always put the needs of our students ahead of ourselves. And last night i got to say a real good-bye to all the kids who went out of their way to be helpful when Jane got sick--and who have put up with and supported me since her death. As my mother-in-law would have said, "he who has two wishes must give up one. Knowing that I was having a tough time, I contacted the facilitator of our group who also does private sessions and we met after school this afternoon. Once I got started I could not stop. I talked and teared up, talked and cried, talked and laughed--and then cried some more. I have told this story so often that I sometimes feel like the Ancient Mariner. But today was different. Maybe she asked the right questions. Maybe i was just ready to let the emotions spill out that have been building all week between giving the scholarships last night, and the six month anniversary anniversary last Friday, and the constant rain, and the cretin who keeps stealing flowers from her grave--and the fact that tomorrow is the last day of classes and other than final exams next week i am nearly retired from this profession that dominated both our lives for so many years. I don't know why, but i felt better than I have for some time afterwards. It isn't like I do not periodically cry at home or behind the wheel of my car or as i mow the lawn. But today was different. I can't explain why. I guess i don't need to have an explanation. I should just accept the gift of it and move on. But I got at some things that I have not been able to before today. My wife and i had some deep understandings and expectations. We knew there was a purpose in what we did and do. And now that purpose is changed--and yet the same. And I keep wrestling with that. How do I do what was supposed to be a two person job alone? God, the housework takes more than twice as long to do--how do i keep up with that and still get to all this other stuff that needs to be done? But then Milton leaps into my mind: "Thousands at his bidding speed...they do also serve who only stand and wait." I am just not used to waiting. Neither of us was. So I go back to trying to relearn patience for what seems the billionth time. But that is all beside the point. I wrote a while back encouraging people to find a grief support group--that it is useful to be in a room physically with others who get it. I have hesitated to go to a one-on-one session for months--partially because of my schedule and partially because I thought i could get through this with just the support group. I was wrong about that. If you have resisted one-on-one counseling, stop doing so. There is great value in it. Peace, Harry

Dear Carol Ann, Nicely done. I know you reached more than one last night. But even if it were just one the nerves and worry would have been worth it. Your heart and patience leave me stunned. Bless you. Peace, Harry

Friends, Thank you Kay. I laughed out loud at that. We had too much snow this winter on this coast, too. Now if we could just have some consistent time of sun instead of rain. Tonight was awards night. i presented awards for history, English, foreign language, art, and music. All the kids were students i had in class except one--and she was one of Jane's favorites. I got to address the class and thank them for their support last fall when Jane was sick--and their help and support since her death. Then i presented scholarships to two of jane's favorite students, one of whom is going into biology research and the other of whom is going into teaching science. Neither saw it coming and i have rarely seen kids with bigger smiles. And the Bruins just scored an empty-net goal to go up 4-0 with under three minutes to play. My kiddo would be very happy. My apologies to the BC contingent who will find this depressing. Peace, Harry

Dear Sad, Sounds like my weekend. Two suggestions: If you have not visited "need to shake this mood" strand on this forum go read it through. I find it helps lift my moods. the new strand on positive emotions also may be helpful to you. I think about you every day even though i do not post to you every day. And when you vanish for a couple of days I think we all worry about you. I hope you are walking some every day and that you are remembering to eat well. Do try to find some activity you can focus on--if only for five minutes--every day that takes you out of your self. We are all pulling for you. Keep breathing. Be patient with yourself--and know that we can all see improvements in your state of mind even if you cannot. Peace, Harry

Dear Pinkpony, My line for this--it echos in my head several times a week--is i am too young to be a widower and too old to be a bachelor. I feel like a tweener too much of the time. Then the voice in my head says it is too early for me to really understand what that line means--and i put the idea back on the shelf and try to just keep living in the moments as they happen. Things will take care of themselves in the fullness of time. The silences are painful, but they give us the opportunity to look at the puzzle that our lives have become if we let them. Not all silences are bad silences. Really too tired to really make this make sense. Will try to explain more clearly when i am more awake. Peace, Harry

Amen, amen, amen. Do well tonight my friend. The spirit is in you. Let it sing. Peace, Harry

Friends, I am exhausted and had planned to come home, check the email and go to bed. The Bruins kept me up too late last night. Then i came home about 8:15. I flipped on the TV to just to see if I missed anything. I flipped to PBS here to Pete Seeger and Judy Collins singing Turn, Turn, Turn. The Birds are singing it in the background now as I write this. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it is the Bible verse that says "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven...a time to mourn, a time to rejoice...a time to sow, a time to reap...a time of peace, I swear it's not to late," set to music. Guess it's time to embrace whatever the time is in the full knowledge that there is a time to every purpose under heaven. Not saying this very well. Peace, Harry

Dear Tammy, Thank you for this. I know some of us thought this before, but it is nice to see someone a bit more objective agree. I read the last comment on the article and i wonder if the writer has a point or not about sadness not being a negative emotion so long as it is not out of control. Certainly there are things to learn from the sadness as well as the things we think of as more positive emotions. Getting stuck there is where the problem is. And the argument seems to be that the more traditional positive emotions prevent the painful emotions from becoming overwhelming--and thus destructive. For those of us grieving, I suspect that getting stuck at either end of the emotional spectrum is dangerous. We are striving to get our balance back and any extreme can throw us into broad pendulum swings that threaten to throw us off the tightrope we walk. Things to think on here. Thank you again. Peace, Harry

Thanks Brian, I needed that. Harry