It’s April 2021and so far it’s a beautiful month. There is some melancholy relating to the six year anniversary of George’s death, but I’m confident that is the way it’s supposed to be. He would be happy knowing we are moving on with our lives and that we are content in many ways. Grief is a fact of life and it’s different whenever it shows it’s face .
The Coronavirus Pandemic is seeing some light at the end of a long tunnel. I’m very thankful for the science that has produced three vaccines for those so inclined to get it, which I am inclined, and can’t really understand reasons others choose not to get it. It’s ok not to understand all those reasons.
I’m reading “Dusk Night Dawn” by Anne Lamont. She makes getting older so funny and interesting. At this time in my life I need funny and interesting. She says, “It’s frustrating to lose cognitive function, and for everything to ache the day after a hike, (in my case the Zoom exercise class.). I take some medicine at night but ten minutes later, I can’t be positive I took it or not, and I have to compensate in a dozen ways for my constant distraction.” I can relate to everything, yes everything she says! I’m sure that I will refer to the audible and book version of her book many times as I go down the “Third Third” of my life.
Spring flowers are everywhere except in my garden. What you see on this page is all that has bloomed so far-one daffodil and one tulip. I’m hoping that isn’t a sign of what is NOT to come. The weather is divine this April and it gives me incentive to get out there and do a little gardening.
I’m looking forward to the rest of my ‘Third Third,” especially my family vacations in July for as many of those years that I’m given.
Grammies world… 
Ann, I hope you are as touched by this poem as I have been. It has special meaning for those at the six year mark. Love to you as you continue on your grief journey. Mamie
At Evening
by Lawrence Raab
At first everything reminded us of you.
We couldn’t help remembering, wanting
to talk about it together. We understood
this was the way grief works
to return us to ourselves—no discoveries
or revelations, just the old stories
full of incident and detail.
Then your death grew quieter
a suspicion the world would always seem
vaguely wrong, as when turning a corner
we recognize someone who isn’t there.
Or when a storm, pushed up for hours
against the mountains, swerves off
and only the ordinary afternoon remains.
Six years now: marking the time
season by season. So we say without thinking
of the first warm days of spring: “Like last year.”
And when we decorate the tree: “Last Christmas…”
Left out, you move farther away,
no longer even the image of yourself
but an idea of absence, sad and abstract.
Around the house you never saw us living in
the ragged music of the crows does not
remind us of what you might have said.
It’s summer, the heavy peonies shredding
out onto the grass. And at evening
the light is dense and delicate,
the mountains arranged in a purity of blue
tier after tier. So that a sense
of comfort begins to include me,
without acknowledgment. A last crow
clatters back into the pines.
One by one: fireflies, stars.
So many flickering emblems—and this stillness
in which remembering might not be an obligation.
You would know what I mean,
you would have known what I mean.
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Oh Mamie, that is so sweet! Thank you so very much. I can relate🥰
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