Christmas and birthday have come and gone...three weeks ago today he said his last words to me, "You are going to do great! I'll see you at the finish line!" Oh, if I could only go back in time and look back, turn around and run to him, hold him and not let go...It hurts so much to be without him. I miss him at night, specially my back, the part that he would cover with his warm body is cold every night...it seems that coldness is all my body remembers, how cold Naomi's pale cheek was when I last kissed her and Ron's cold hand in mine. He was never cold! He was my warmth, "Put your hands in mine," he would tell me on chilly mornings before a run. Will my life ever be warm again? I trust and believe, Oh Lord help my heart to trust you more. I surrender for there is nowhere to go, or fight. I'm tired of hurting and crying. I know the dawn will bring joy but this will be a long cold night. The prayer shawl the methodist ladies knitted will comfort me...It's soft and warm. I'll crawl under it and pray and be lost, lost in my tears, lost in His Words and eventually lost in the comfort He can only bring.

We are again at Borders, surrounded by books, it's comforting to be engulfed in the written word. The world moves around us and we are still. The girls read, devouring every word, being taken away from sorrow and pain. This season we will consume books like gluttonous children consuming candy. They will take us away for moments at a time if only to relieve some of the grief...

The girls are sleeping with me. Carmel on a cot at the foot of the bed and the younger ones around me holding me from behind and front, poor little ones...my heart breaks, there is only me left, and they fear that I too might leave for heaven. We will survive, I tell myself over and over, of course I know this. I have died once before when my little Naomi died six years ago and here I am surviving yet a second time. I believe it, I know it to be true, but I feel like dying. Lord help me live again!

Tea comforts me. It warms me inside, inside my core not my heart or emotions, but holding a warm cup of tea feels like my hands are in his, if only I could smell him, mint tea rises to meet my nose and fills my sinuses, but it's his smell I seek. His pillow has lost his smell already and I'm so dam efficient that I didn't leave any dirty laundry. The house was extensively cleaned before the funeral, his smell is gone as natural as if he had never set foot in the house. Not like when he went on a trip but like if he had never laid beside me. His things still remain, reading glasses on the coffee table in the TV room, waiting for him on top of his book. I haven't moved them yet. Part of me feels like maybe he'll be coming back for them any minute now. Oh, must I be honest with myself? But it hurts so much.....