So far it's been a quiet and somewhat lonely holiday season here at Chez Swanknitter. I treated myself to a Christmas feast of a selection of cheeses and smoked salmon with crackers followed by brownies, accompanied by a cleanskin Reisling. Today was the first really hot day of the summer, that is, hot enough to turn on the a/c. After all the rain earlier in the season, right now we could use some. The berry bushes are covered in black jewels of flavour. I made a batch of jam, but I've also enjoyed several bowls of berries with cream. These are loganberries and some boysenberries. Their new growth is so enthusiastic this year that it's hard to get near to pick them.

The past few days I've had a recurrence of the knee problems I had before my replacement. I have no idea what has caused this, but the knee is sore and the muscles are spasming again. I think I overdid a bit in my rush back to normalcy and need to take it slower. It's very difficult when so many things cry out for attention not to get into action. My major downfall and character flaw.

I finished In Defense of Food, which should have been a magazine article instead of a book. If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma, you will know what Michael Pollan is about. I believe him and would like to follow his precepts, except sometimes is difficult to eat the right food when you don't know where it has come from or how it was grown. That's one reason I'm so passionate about my veggie garden. I started The Algebraist by Iain M Banks but my hands struggled with its size. This is the first time I am seriously considering buying the Kindle edition of something I own in paper. I am reading Kathy Reich's Mortal Remains on the Kindle instead.

I think I've reached my destination in the family tree business, altho there is still lots to do yet. I got back to William the Conqueror thru yet another bastard line. So lots of baronets and influential Normans in the tree but I don't need to go any further back than that, but need to document the intervening links. Fortunately there seems to be a fair group of fellow genealogists working the same lines.

On the fibre front, I am knitting socks for myself out of the merino & bamboo blend I spun recently, I am knitting a winter scarf for X2 out of various natural coloured wools. It's knit the long way so there are stripes for each new yarn, It's in seed stitch and is almost done so I'll get a photo before I post it. I could not face any more alpaca to spin so poked around in the stash and pulled out a gorgeous hand painted rope of BFL (blue-face Leicester) in gorgeous mossy greens. It's from Briar Rose and of course it's a dream to spin. I have to pace myself with the spinning and knitting because altho I love doing both, my hands often tell me the next day that I over did it. See a pattern here?

Over the holidays I learned that another dear friend of mine going back to grad school at UNC had passed away the day after my sister. She was only 72. She was first an instructor when I was studying African linguistics, and helped me learn Hausa, which is an extremely difficult language. I got good enough that I could read literacy pamphlets and write simple stories but I am sure I don't retain a single word. She became a friend and we kept in touch through the years. I was unable to meet with her on my last trip to Chapel Hill due to family obligations (hers) and now I know I missed the last chance to see her. She was one of the friends I was hoping to move back to be near.

1980 was probably the peak of my adult life, although I didn't know it then. I was healthy, very happily married, in my dream job, and the future looked bright. As the '80's progressed bad things happened. My mother died of breast cancer in 1981 and I felt numb with pain for about a year. She was 74. A few years later I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and began the dance with pain. At the same time I did my right knee and had the first arthroscopic surgeries. Shortly there after, I was diagnosed with kerataconus and started the routine of eye exams and new contacts every six months or so until I had both corneas replaced in 1989/90. During the end of the '80's, my marriage fell apart as my husband was away on business more and more, and I was more consumed by moving up the food chain at work.

Enter a brief interlude when I met the Bear, shed my old life, and ran away to Australia. Bliss, aside from financial pinches until I reentered the workforce determined to be a drone. Then fibromyalgia struck me with its fairy wand and I knew serious pain, daily pain, pain that ruled my life. I really missed my friends back in the US because I had so few friends of my own age and background here. I cannot fault the dear friends I made working at the Library and they have helped me survive a lot, but I'm old enough to be their mothers. I lost one of my US friends who shared chronic illness in the early 2000's and it hit me very hard. She was one of the inner circle and losing her was a blow that took a long while to recover from. Then there was the Bear. You blog-readers know what I went through 3 years ago and I haven't recovered yet. Then there was my sister this year. On the visit to the US for her memorial service I made sure I made time to see BFLB in Ohio, who has been suffering from kidney cancer for 10 years. I never dreamt it would be the last time I saw her, probably the last time I will speak to her. In the past 2 weeks the cancer has caught up to her and the doctors have run out of miracle treatments (and she had her share of whiz-bang medical technology used on her). As of today she is in a hospice and is unresponsive. BFLB is also one of the inner circle, the one who was my knitting guru, the one who managed the dream of building a house in the country on a nice block of land. Her husband, St. H., was a good friend to the Bear and the four of us enjoyed our visits together. Now I worry for St. H. because he has to go through the deepest valley of losing your true love. He's known this day would come for 10 years but I don't think that makes it any easier then it was for me who only really knew what was happening the last 2 weeks of the Bear's life.

I feel like this has been cumulative and I don't know how to handle any more grief. But I also know that being of a certain age means you know more people who are likely to leave this plane in the coming years. I'm not a religious person so I have no firmly held beliefs as to what lies after death. Their spirits all live on with those who loved them; maybe that's what life after death means. But we who are left behind feel an awful hole in our souls where that bit that was bound to them leaves with them. I will always love those people listed above and still think about my mother almost daily. I still wake up thinking the Bear is still here. Think of your loved ones and cherish those still with you.

On my own personal battle, my surgeon has instituted 2 weeks complete rest for the knee, trying to let it heal. I hesitate to speak too loudly but after 4 days, it is less painful and slightly less swollen. I sincerely hope this most annoying restriction works, because I am going mad being kept away from my garden at the peak of its neediness.

Today we start with photos. To the left is the last of the black alpaca, now sorted, deseeded and clean.

Some of it is long enough to spin from the locks, while other bits will have to be carded. It was very soft when I was cleaning it so I have high hopes of the end result. I am currently spinning some of the pale grey Shetland I brought back from the States.





To the right is the superwash merino/bamboo
blend I spun a while back. It feels very light
so I am hoping it will make decent light weight socks.







I finished Rainbows End and enjoyed it completely. Especially as it takes place in San Diego which is one of those places I'd love to live (and we almost did via the Bear's job). I am now reading Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, which sometimes feels like I've read it before but then a lot of his images have been "borrowed" by other authors since it was written 20 years ago.

I had my doctor's visit today and he is still mystified by why my knee remains swollen. He aspirated (stuck a needle in) it and drew out some fluid to be sent off to the lab. I have to get another X-ray and see him in 2 weeks. We are hoping there is no infection because that would be very bad but what else is going on is a mystery.

I spent a very lazy day in bed yesterday while thunderstorms threatened but never materialized. Today is warm and sunny and my knee feels even worse after being stuck with a needle. So much for gardening. My car is covered in pollen and windblown wisteria blossoms since that is in full bloom. My baby apple trees are blooming, as is the pear. The backyard is alive with the humming of bees.

Today is the first official day of retirement. If it weren't for the knee, I would be dancing in the street, or at least in the backyard. Instead here I am writing in my blog, feeling depressed. I have been thinking about the Bear a lot as his birthday approaches. I keep going over what I could have done to prevent his early demise. What if I had thrown a tantrum early on and threatened to leave him if he didn't stop drinking? He would have known I'd never leave him. Should I have accompanied him to the GP every time to tell him what the Bear didn't? I think of all the wonderful times we had and then the image of him in the oncology ward comes up and I lose it. If he were here there wouldn't be a thought in my head about going back to the US, but that seems my best option now. Meanwhile I can still sometimes smile and think of my dear boy.

When the Bear and I got married 19 years ago, Uncle John gave us a novelty garter with a musical charm that played the wedding march. There is something about the electronic warbling of that thing that instantly irritates and/or intrigues cats. Every so often when I'm digging in my underwear drawer, I activate it and the cat goes bananas. Bear, I still miss you every single day and have only just made it to not crying every day. Pink's song "Who Knew?" makes me cry because it makes me think of his leaving me. No he didn't leave me on this plane of existence but he's just as gone and three years is rapidly approaching.

I'm reading a fascinating book, Foreign Babes in Beijing by Rachel Dewoskin. Aside from its witty observance of China and her fellow foreign babes, it is a startling view of a person who did something most of would never dream of doing. Admittedly Rachel came from an American family deeply involved in China from her childhood, but you or I would not just take off for Beijing on any job we could wangle just to go live there with our university level Chinese. It would be like me deciding to go to Nairobi because I speak what I know is a smattering of Swahili. To top the whole foreign immersion experience, she signs up to be an actress in a TV soap opera (whose title is the book's) to play a version of herself as seen through Chinese eyes, which is hardly flattering or even accurate. All Westerners smell of milk? I recommend this book highly as a view into China that would be hard to get otherwise. I am fascinated with modern China and Japan, especially how they are incorporating Western idioms into their culture. (My Ph.D. thesis was going to be on how modern technology had been expressed in Swahili) Culture clash is one of the things I find fascinating, even in science fiction. One of the best is the "Foreigner" series by C.J. Cherryh, latest volume just out.

Yes, I do speak a smattering of Swahili. In grad school I specialized in African linguistics and learned Swahili and Hausa, and took classes in Twi and a Bantu language. I actually taught Swahili for a year. It's a relatively simple language to learn, if you can call a language with 9 noun classes and whose verb tenses are expressed by adding a syllable in the middle of the verb. Of course, none of this gets you a job in the real world, hence I fell back on my original (i.e., from junior high) plan and became a librarian. I've been a librarian of sorts since 1976 and it's taken me many places and I've made lots of friends that have changed my life. After all I met X2 in a library, and met the Bear only because my work institution happened to have the creaky frame that was the Internet in 1990.

It is bucketing rain here and I have gotten over the novelty and am glad the reservoirs are filling up, but I'd really like to get in the garden to tidy it up. I know I'm going to have to hire a professional to do the ultimate clean up, but there are weeding and pruning I could do. I dug some potatoes to put in the pot of split pea soup I have on the stove and had to prune back a rose bush to get at them. I also retrieved another pumpkin, this time for use as veg not soup. In the supermarket yesterday I bought "buttermilk scones" hoping for American biscuits and, while the texture is about right, there's something off in the taste. Too sweet too. I was intrigued by frozen sweet potato fries until I read the label and found out they were imported from Canada! How on earth did sweet potatoes from Canada end up in my frozen food aisle? Canada is of course famous for its sweet potatoes.

A long weekend (Labor Day) and I didn't manage to post. My headaches seem to have passed, so it was probably only a minor concussion which has no care but taking Panadol. I was very tired on Saturday, did a lot on Sunday and paid for it on Monday. I am still very tired and have not slept well in ages. I'm back to the old rotisserie nights when I sleep on one side till it hurts and wakes me up, and I change position until the other side hurts, repeat ad nauseum. I was on my feet a lot on Sunday doing the weekly shopping plus a trip to the local garden centre. I got 2 early tomatoes, just because they might be all gone when I do my major garden purchase. I got lots of peat pellets into which I planted all my tender pumpkins, melons and squashes, those that I must raise from seed because they aren't available from commercial sources, such as yellow crookneck summer squash, fancy melons, etc. Altho I am not sure why I plant fancy melons because I rarely get any results. We have had rain off and on for almost a week which is very unusual, and I hope it means the summer won't be bone dry. I've bit a very large bullet and am installing ducted reverse cycle heating & cooling (a heat pump to the Americans). This is mostly because I am not sure that the furnace has another year in it, and I would really like to be able to function when we have days of 45C. In the past it meant I laid around and perspired, but I could actually continue normal activities with a/c. Plus it adds to the value of the house. Right now it's supposed to be mid spring and we are due for a frost tomorrow, so who knows what the summer will bring.

One of the things Aussies usually have to contend with in spring is swooping magpies, who are only protecting their nests. I have never been swooped and I have lots of maggies in my garden but they also come and help me garden. I'll be weeding away and look up and there's a magpie standing 6 feet away waiting for me to uncover something edible. I had to almost shoo him out of the way of the lawn mower last week (much rain equals much growth of greenery). I also noticed that the possums have eaten almost all the leaves off my climbing rose (Cecile Brunner). I don't think there will be any lasting damage but there are several small birds (wrens, silvereyes) that would like to nest in the protected depth of a rose bush and are now left in a glass house.

I did manage to take 2 computers to recycle and then had a grieving spell for another part of the Bear which has left the building. How can I feel emotional attachment to a computer? Because he lived in front of that computer for years. It had gotten so unstable that I had to delete files en masse becuase Windows crashed so frequently. I don't think anything extremely personal or work related was left and, having seen the mountains of computers at the recyclers, I don't think anybody has the time to revive a hard drive. I forgot there was an extra drive on the system and found a lot of the stuff I wanted to save there. But it took days to do all of this.

Work has been incredibly boring lately and there are many days I just want to take a nap during the day. All I am doing is catalogue the dregs of a private collection (and I do mean dregs) and do authority work. I have been changing subject headings for "handicapped" to "disabled" for weeks. There are so many different headings and so many with subdivisions that it's never ending. Yes, there is a global way of doing this but I don't have access to the software, and those that do are too busy with more important things. I used to say proudly that I love my job but not so much lately. I am also being moved to a (potentially) much noisier location without my consent or even being informed which annoys me. My boss usually keeps me in the loop but not this time.

Knitting has taken a back seat to spinning. I've plied the sock wool, and am spinning the batts of alpaca I had carded. There is so much left to wash and card that the mind reels. I'm going to have to devote evenings to picking over alpaca to wash or I will nevet get it out of plastic bags and turned into something usable. I keep finding things I could weave if I had the time which is also annoying, and another reason for wanting a/c.

My weather pixie thinks it's raining and, because it appears as it's about to that I did not go to watch the Swannies play today here in Canberra. That and the fact that my partner in Swandom is sick and decided it was too great a risk for her to go. Going to the footy alone isn't much fun, even when the heavens aren't steel grey and threatening.

The other half of the story is I am catching up from my DMIL's visit to pack up her china to take to Sydney and as part two of that visit, to put The Bear in the cemetery in a niche next to his grandfather. This visit was physically demanding (lots of time on my feet followed by a 3 hour drive each way) but emotionally draining. I haven't been sleeping well, probably because this event was looming over me. My right hip has been killing me, making sleep difficult. I think it's connected to the bad knee so I hope having the second knee replaced will end my torment, but in the meantime, I am sleepless and in pain. I thought I had prepared myself for the cemetery but I had to choose wording for the plaque and I lost it again. I have lost the fact that his mortal remains were here. I know he isn't in any way attached to them, but this is another tear in the connective tissue holding us together. My MIL wanted his chess set so I went diving in the the cupboards in the computer room and came up with first a huge box of his slides. They are all in labeled slots, but his handwritten guide did not match what was actually in the compartments. Since he kept everything, there are slides supposedly going back to 1961, but I couldn't find the early ones. A bright day and I'll try to sort some of them. While I'm sure they meant something to him (although he never looked at them in the 16 years we were married) I am not intending to keep his honeymoon snaps from 1971 with 57 photos of Hong Kong harbour. I eventually found the chess set, and it went north with the china and his genealogical jottings. I think the chess set came from that visit to Hong Kong.

I saw my rheumatologist this week, the new one who has replaced my old Dr B. She was only interested in my arthritis and I kept trying to tell her that the fibromyalgia pain was worse than the arthritis. No new advice except to rest periodically and not to do too much, but at the same time I should get exercise. She did write a script for "breakthrough pain" and my hip has caused me to use it once already. I haven't been knitting terribly much because my hands have hurt too much. Still working on D's socks and the ribbon shell.

I was listening to a new podcast today, The DNA Files. Some new things have been discovered on how genes get switched on and off that I am sure will make an incredible difference to the health of millions, once the scientists figure it all out. I am pretty confident I carry the gene that is latent for arthritic diseases and it got activated big time. I think my sister has it partially expressed, showing some FMS symptoms but not all. My MIL has discovered she has a breast cancer gene throughout her family, and I am high risk as well. My mother died of breast cancer and my sister is currently enduring therapy to remove it from her. Gene therapy offers better health but I am afraid I'm too old to get much benefit from it. I also hope it isn't one of those things that is limited to wealthy nations.

Another episode of the same podcast was about GM foods. I am of two minds on this one. I would love to see rice with an added beta-carotene gene grown in areas with severe deficiencies in Vitamin A in normal diets but I'm not so sure about inserting e.coli into pigs to help reduce their waste products. What about coffee decaffeinated in the bean? Do we know enough to do this? On the other hand we've been messing with plant and animal genetics for thousands of years. If only they'd work on weed genetics and not crop plants. So far the only work I've heard about is finding herbicide resistant weeds.

I was thinking about this before I venture back into the garden to plant my latest plants from Diggers. I am trying potatoes for the first time and I have 2 dwarf apple trees to plant. I know nothing about apples so I am on a steep learning curve. Sorry about the silence but I have been otherwise occupied and very depressed so why share the grief? He really is never coming back and that still rips my heart open daily.

It's getting very close to July 1 and J thinks my body is subconsciously feeling it, although I am not too depressed in my conscious mind. I'm certainly not very cheery since all I can say is this is not the life I pictured for myself and I still feel horribly wounded when the Bear was ripped from me. I've screwed up everything I could in the past week and feel like I'm a walking accident. J is coming over in the night of July 1 to keep me occupied and the other J is going out the lunch with me the day after. I am so glad I have friends to support me, even though at the end of the day I'm still alone and feeling it deeply.

I also had lunch yesterday with M and C for a girl chat and C came over to my house afterwards for an "airing of the stash". I managed to offload to her a whole plastic box full of assorted yarns. She knits for kids and she also knit toys so lots of little bits and pieces went to her. I even gave her my green and gold handspun so she could think of something to knit with it. I kept pulling out handspun and realized I really should knit with some of it, so I am putting the saddle shoulder cardigan back in the queue and am going to knit a warm jacket out of assorted greys from handspun. I would like to think I can do it before I go overseas but I don't knit very fast. I'd like one with a zip front. I even offloaded sock yarn (gasp). The red and white hat is almost finished. I have the final row and then the finishing to do. I actually liked the pattern and wouldn't mind knitting it again. I am also going to start summer knitting with a shell/tank from Choo-Choo ribbon yarn from Crystal Palace.

The family history business sucks me in. I am on One Great Family which links you to other contributed family trees so my meager knowledge has been linked to others going back 13 generations. I haven't fully looked at the whole tree yes, and this is just 2 of the branches from my mother's side. I got stuck with "Tyler" which was my great-grandmother's maiden name. What has blown me away is that I am linked to some of the earliest settlers in Massachusetts and Canada. When you learn all this early colonial history in school it sort of become a soup and to think that my distant relatives were in the very first settlers in the New World is just fascinating to me. I've got a couple of books out of the Library to learn more. I never thought when the Bear and I were touring Jamestown, that my ancestors were landing in Massachusetts not long after. I'd like to learn what it was like to live then. I assume because of the early date they were religious refugees, which would tie to the family myth on my father's side that we were early Congregationalists (Puritans) in Connecticut which I now know was superficially fiction. My grandparents only joined the Old Stone Church shortly before my father was born.

What's my excuse this time? I have none. I have been tired, in pain, grieving, busy with all the dumb things we have to do in our daily lives. I had a spell of not sleeping. I have a chronically sore right thumb that I got X-rayed this week although I think it's "just" arthritis. I have been going in later to work which my body appreciates but I don't like sitting in traffic for 25 minutes to go 3 kms. And going in late means I work later and barely am home, changed clothes and read mail before I am into making dinner, feeding the cats, etc. The Senior cat continues to deteriorate, coughing spells last longer and sound more painful, she has ceased washing herself and only lies in the dining room or the computer room in the sun all day and my lap at night. I briefly got both of them in bed with me (if they can't see each other they can pretend they don't know) the other night. I can tell by the way the SC walks that she's in pain. I hope she makes it through my trip. I've also been working on trip details, getting in touch with old friends and figuring out dates.

Grieving: still hurts deep in the centre of me. It's also loss--that part of my life is missing. All very tender areas I can't dwell on without crying and so I tip-toe around the edges, knowing and acknowledging the sore place but not poking it to make it blot out the sun. Strange as this may sound, I've gone back to wearing make up. In my old life I wouldn't even go to the grocery store without eye make up. Here, as part of a unit where I was loved for the essence of me, not so much my appearance, and I didn't care what anybody else thought, I stopped the routine. A photo taken recently revealed that I have no eyebrows and my features seem to have disappeared. Being a single (well, there is nobody I'm a part of anymore) I feel eyes not seeing a couple but a single. Perhaps it's vanity in my old age and more wrinkles than I had a year ago. So now I have a collection of potions and such that add to my getting ready to face the world time, but give me a little more self confidence in being a single, an atom split from my molecule. Now to sound utterly vain but I don't think I look my age and if I can shed the last 10 kgs I will feel even better about my Self, my Individualness, my Aloneness, the outer shell the world sees.

I have been busy stripping wallpaper from what will be the guest bedroom and I'll go back to that once I post this. I have almost warped my loom for second time. The bathroom renovations are scheduled for this week.

I am spinning my free fleece, which is so soft delicious merino. I am knitting the Mountain colors socks (did some of that during Earth hour last night). I have 2 side panels to knit for the Sakiori II vest from Folk Vests and then the collar after I put it all together. The yarn is bulky so it goes quickly. I broke the yarn diet that I have been on for over a year and bought some 90% silk yarn from Elann, as well as some Berroco Cotton twist which I love and is not sold in this country as far as I know.

This post is about books. There are books in every room of this house, reference books, popular fiction, BBBBs (Big Boring Bedtime Books), books I've read but have special meaning to me. I admit I am getting rid of the Bear's massive stash of books, but he never threw away a book. Never. Back to the 1960's. And he bought and read books like you or I eat popcorn. There were a lot of books we both loved and those of course are kept, but I don't need a 1960's copy of Airport nor many of his other old leftovers. I've kept a select few of his Civil War books (the 3 volume Shelby Foote opus), bird books, and so on. Enough to fill many bookcases but not falling out onto the floor or stacking up in the corners.

I finished two books recently I haven't reported on. Sheri Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country was terrific. I had read another novel by her, Grass, and was impressed so bought more. She writes what I have to describe as feminist science fiction and that is how she is labeled. The Gate to Women's Country has a surprise ending, one that you begin to guess at in the last third of the book but the final revelation is more than I was anticipating. Written so it's a page turner that you are reluctant to put down, I can recommend it highly. I have just gone out and bought several of her other books.

On the topic of buying books, I also recommend Better World Books, especially for used books. They have a huge stock, charge reasonable shipping to overseas addresses and their profits go to charity, supporting literacy and libraries. They are cheerful, personal and great to deal with. I found them through Amazon, but now go directly to them.

The other book I read was The Olive Harvest by Carol Drinkwater, which was a loan from a good friend. It was obvious that I should have read the preceding books first, but it was easy enough to figure out who was who. It was a page turner too, but, despite the glowing reviews, I wished she had a better editor. The prose needed a blue pencil to chop out cliches, overused terminology, too many trips to the thesaurus, etc. But it is a sensitive story I could relate to, of a woman trying to keep her Provencal olive farm afloat when her husband leaves her to pursue demands of his career. I wanted to tell her that people who sustain head injuries are not right for a long time afterwards, but apparently the French just told her to let him rest, which of course he refused to do. At any rate, everything turns out well in the end, even if I couldn't figure out where the money was coming from. The earlier books, no doubt.

Two books of the many I went to for help in dealing with my overwhelming grief on losing my dearest Bear were of real use. I read a lot of "widow books" which really didn't help me. They were full of things about how to handle children, when to start dating (!), and very short on the grief aspect. The two good ones are Understanding Grief by Alan Wolfelt and How to go on Living when Someone you Love Dies by Therese Rando. They are specifically targeted at grief, not about financial arrangements or other tangential issues. Yes, the only real "cure" for grief is time, but understanding why you are tearing your hair out in the middle of the night I found reassuring. I still grieve every day and I expect I will for a long long time. I still wake up expecting him to be here, I wait for him to come home, I just cannot get my head around the concept that my wonderful, comforting, aggravating, messy husband can possibly be dead. His ashes are right where I see them every day, but I still cannot understand how he could have died. Does this make sense? It's like one part of me just can't understand how I got to this place. The books analyze the various aspects of a relationship and the changes that happen and get you to think about specifics instead of just crying (which I still do). My body is still dealing with the stress of the event and I haven't been able to work a full 15 hour week for a while, being in pain, or not sleeping or some other hindrance to functionality. I also cannot keep up with household tasks on my own. There is just too much to do and I can't do it all. When the garden shuts down, I hope to catch my breath.

Scrap all that stuff about being brave and putting on a happy face and being a role model for chronic pain. Today I'm a mess. I miss my dear Bear so much and trying to get his stuff ready to move (should the furniture movers actually show up this time) just brought back so many memories. I can still hear his cheesy jokes and our own secret language of movie references, fractured French/Spanish/Latin, set pieces rolled out for occasions, etc., his funny faces and cuddling arms, his demand for one last kiss before I left for work. All that loaded on a day of incredible pain that none of my drugs helped. So I lie in bed when the outside temperature is around 34C and try to read or sleep or resist the attentions of very hot cat who wants to curl up with me. I am so lonely in this house and while I have lots of friends, they aren't here all the time like he as. Am I supposed to go on grieving forever? Find a quick replacement (I'm too old to train a new husband)? When will the heartache be bearable? How do I cope with this loss on top of a painful condition like FMS? It is all too much for me some days. I'd give anything for another day with him. I'd give anything for a day without physical pain. Neither seems likely. The only way I function is to build a wall around him and a wall around the pain in my mind. I doubt that's the right thing to do according to mental health professionals and look what happens when the walls fall down. Please let this pass and give me strength to go on living tomorrow and put today in the past.