Now, the weather outside is frightful, when inside it is so delightful…and it snowed, and it snowed, and it snowed.

Hadn’t pretty much all winter, but it made up for it this past weekend. Then once the snow had all fallen, the temperature dipped to -25 (or more) for about 48 hours or so. Even had to drag out my -40 big-ass Sorel moon boots we’d bought to survive those Grey County winters.

And, horoscope yesterday morning told me I would need tremendous patience. That my normal welcoming disposition would be challenged. In my experience, horoscopes are hit and miss. Yesterday was a home run.

The only thing wrong with yesterday was it was Valentine’s Day, and this winter has been a season of sadness, with peaks of joy and amusement. But still, yesterday took me by surprise.

After surviving the snow that wouldn’t blawdy stop, the frigid temperatures, after my work-a-day, Sunday, walking across the darkened parking lot towards my bus and BOOM, tears.   Tim, I miss you, I said out loud.

Man, you know Mom, this time around it is so different. I was certainly sad after you died. I felt profound grief, and it changed me. Yet, your death had no conflicts for me. I loved you, I missed you, and the whole thing was tremendously unfair. But I learned to live with it and recognize that life just is not fair.

With Tim though, it just isn’t that simple. On the one hand, Tim and I shared more, did more, experienced more in 4 years, than roger.the.dodger and I did in our whole decade of married life.

Of course, With Tim came a whole gang of trouble, as you know. His narcissism, his addictions, and his proclivity to lies. To him, a lie was better than the truth, because the truth had never given him what he wanted; but lies always had.

Or so I imagine it appeared. I tried to tell him he was wrong. Sadly, it was just too late. I often wondered if he actually knew what the truth sounded like? Or maybe he was so involved in his own make-believe BS that he actually, truly, believed? Who knows.

There are entire areas of his life, you know, I still really don’t understand. Areas he whitewashed over, roughly, and would get all bitchy when I brought them up. So I didn’t.

You know me, Mom, I really don’t welcome confrontation.

Well, of course, generally because I’m usually right. Ahem. So I always wonder why someone would even try to question that.

Yeah, well, Tim didn’t see it that way. Eventually, I just learned to gloss over his little inconsistencies, or quite frankly I would have gone mad in trying to drag any truth out of him. Facts were optional with Tim.

But with all those delightful qualities the little scallywag brought with him, he still could be genuine, thoughtful, sweet, kind, loving, and honest.

That last Valentine’s we had, you’ll remember we were at Thameswood while he received the chemo/radiation round of treatment. It was to have lasted for 8 weeks, but he barely survived a month. By Valentine’s, he was a mess. Yet somehow he managed to buy me a Valentine’s gift.

He was also highly resourceful. I mean, you could want for little with Tim, if you could live with his methods. So he’d found someone to buy him what he wanted, as he was too ill to do it himself.  It was so sweet, he bought me two gardening/bird magazines. He knew me so well.

That gift meant more to me than any fancy dinner, flowers, Belgium chocolates, AND maybe even theater tickets, EVER could.

Oh Mom, this grief is not easy. Not at all.

Like a scratch in a record, it keeps skipping me up in the same place. When I feel forward movement. When I begin to be free of it, when life takes a good turn, when I begin to let go, it returns, if briefly.

And there I am again. I miss you, Tim.

But I don’t want him back, see, that’s the thing. I miss him, but I couldn’t have been with him if he’d lived. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. I’d honestly had enough.

The last year though changed everything. We grew closer and closer each day. As each horrible thing transpired, through strange pains that wouldn’t go away, to him turning yellow, through the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, to the operation, and the rounds of chemo and radiation. Through all the repercussions of all that crap coursing through his veins. We grew closer, and closer, and closer, until we were more than merely boyfriend and girlfriend. More than a partner, spouse, or otherwise.

We had become entangled.

When he died, I think he took a piece of me with him.

He saw me like no one else ever had. Knew me, like few have ever cared to delve.

And, out of all the people he had known, I took him, warts and all; even if he didn’t always believe it. I relied on him, and he came to rely on me. He knew he could trust me, eventually. I knew what he wanted, even if I may have disagreed. I knew.

Oh, Mom, he was a challenge. I will never forget him.

And so I write.

Going back through my old posts, this was what I wrote 3 years ago on this day.

So when I finally emerged from my office hole yesterday evening and noticed the solar light on the porch glowing I was completely taken aback. How on earth could that possibly be glowing? That was my first thought. This is a SOLAR Light – we haven’t had enough of that big ball in the sky in almost 4, perhaps even 5 days. Now what do you make of that?

Well, that was my last little gift I believe. It shone for only an hour, from 6:15 till just about 7:10, and then it went dark. I even went outside to see if any other’s were glowing. Not a one. Not even the one’s by the pond that are in the open. Oh, and notice the top where the panels are located is covered in snow.

I stood in the darkened kitchen and couldn’t do anything else but cry. It was like a hug – it was beautiful. He knows me well.

It was like he was saying, let my love be instead a light in the darkness.

Anyways, its Family Day today in Ontario. New holiday the government dreamed up to put another long weekend in between Christmas and Easter.

I can hear Irish over on the bed snoring away, dreaming of pee stains in the snow, and whatever other delightful smells to smell, no doubt. So she’ll get a walk, if only around the block.

Am I lonely? Hell, ya. I’m coming to terms with it, though, and I’ve realized lately that I don’t mind anymore being lonely. This solitude I find becomes me.

And crossroads man comes around, every now and again; so I have that. He’s more friend, than lover. I want more, yet, what more means, well that’s the question. I also wonder if I DO want more, or if I just think I want more?

Death is our friend, precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.”

Maybe the scratch I keep tripping over, is I don’t want more. Maybe I’m fine just the way I am? Maybe that’s what the point was all along. Love me.