groceries

Grocery shopping can be hard
All the foods Lev liked to eat
Now who will eat them

A banana rots in our bowl

Rebecca

one day

A hard day.

Everyone talking about the holidays with their family
Complaints about too many people to cook for

Went with Jaal to deposit a check and ended up closing Lev's account
No questions asked but some tears shed
He will never spend the money he saved

Called the coroner about requesting the wax slides so maybe some day we could find out what kind of bacteria it was that killed him
Not that it matters
Trying to solve an insolvable situation

Lev's friend Kalyn came by
Friends filled with sadness, struggling
Helping to put pictures in an album
Wanting to do something when nothing really helps
Losing a good friend and your second family

Snow
Seasons change and Lev isn't here to see it

Rebecca

Thanksgiving weekend

Lev always liked to bar tend at Mario and Elizabeth's.
He liked to be in charge, and to be useful.

We decided to do something different this year and we went to a retreat at the north Cascades Learning Center at Diablo dam with Ted, John, And Sue Ellen.

It was nice to be away, but there are so many things that Lev would have liked. He enjoyed going places and doing most things. He liked playing with little kids, learning new information, being the most informed on a subject, and most of all playing in the snow.

We had nice snow here and it has been beautiful - truly lovely.

But it is hard to be around people who are not grieving. There are other families here, but we have been able to keep to ourselves as much as we want.

Tony was feeling a little bitter about it again, but as Jaal says, you don't actually know what losses or problems the other family might have. We often look normal and happy, and so might they.

I noticed a few single parent families and I wonder if they are widowed or just lonely.

It is just hard to imagine that Lev really isn't coming back.
There is so much more that he would have wanted to do in this world. It seems so unfair, and cruel. Here today, gone tomorrow. You never know.

I went to a yoga class here and they did a little part on laughter. I couldn't make myself laugh, just a fake, evil laugh. For me, yoga is meditative and therefore it is sad.

I remember when the four of us went to a laughter yoga class that our friend Weslie was teaching. It was silly, but we wanted to support her. We did silly things, and forced ourselves to laugh, which of course made us really laugh, which i s the whole point. Fake laughter releases the same endorphins as real laughter, so it is therapeutic. Lev enjoyed being silly with us and strangers. Jaal was a good sport but Lev thrived in odd situations. I appreciate any reason to laugh now, as they are more seldom, but making myself laugh when I feel depressed is only more depressing.

It is great to had Jaal home. It fills a bit of the hole in our lives. But it makes me turn on the parenting vibe, and in some ways confuses me. I expect Lev to be back also. I occasionally get clarity about our situation and the meaning of forever, but most of the time I am still waiting for Lev's return.

I have never wanted something so badly that is not within reach.

Rebecca

Change in seasons

It snowed and Lev isn't here to see it.