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It's been a while.

My life has gone in various directions, I started a new blog a few years ago and have been writing quite a bit. Today I wrote this, about today.

It has been a busy ten years.

I have completed the novelization of Emma's last year, you can view it here. I had hoped it would be therapeutic, I'm not sure if it was. Who says "I think I'll spend a few weeks intimately examining the details of the most miserable time of my life"? Me.

It is drawn from this blog and my memories, my mom is my first editor, Lieve is helping with the cover. It runs about 19000 words and early reviews have been very positive, but they've been from friends. I hope to have it published, my idea is to fund this website and make donations to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network with the proceeds, SO...please read it but when it is published please purchase a copy. Or seven.

I received a box from my mother yesterday, thought it was her edits, but instead it was my baby book. Fascinating, I haven't changed that much. One teacher commented "Blake doesn't walk, he dances". 

 I'm realizing that very shortly my memories of "what I was doing a year ago" will not include Emma.

 Memorial Day weekend 2010 was a big memory factory, more than I realized at the time, but then I guess that's typically the case with times that turn out to be memorable. It was the point immediately before the fall, when as dismal as things appeared we still held hope of finishing the year together.

 This year was the memories that will help balance last year. Lieve and I went to the opera with friends Friday night, Iolanthe. Okay, the last time I was at the Academy of Music it was with Emma, for Faust, so that evening was bouncing around with the faeries on stage, but it was still a step forward. We spent the night in Philly (at a hotel, a small reminder that I don't really belong there anymore). Before the opera we had dinner in old city, taking the bus to the Academy was enough to make me want to avoid that part of town. Remembering the visits to the different clinics, the imaging center where the last PET was done, the corner where we...

 I suppose it should come as no surprise that the month has been filled with reminders. 

 I've been invited to attend a memorial service, for those who "spent their last moments" at Jefferson Hospital, hosted by Pastoral services. They asked that I bring  momento to help create a "memory table". I'm not sure how or if I wish to participate. I was feeling like this had passed and now I'm smothered in it.

 Next week Lieve and I visit both Nolan and Devon, I need to focus on my family.

 Last Friday, 1 April 2011, would have been our twelfth wedding anniversary. What can I say?

 In the eleven and a half years that Emma and I were able to share our lives, we felt everything. We were our happiest, our saddest, our healthiest, our sickest. We loved, we fought, we held each other through the darkest of nights. We both threatened to walk away, and neither of us ever did.

 I would never forget her. I never forget people anyway, so that sounds a little meaningless. I would love to be able to give it more meaning, the reality of her absence seems so unreal. As if she's in another room, and I'm failing to tend to her. I still feel that I haven't done enough, that there's something more.

 At times like this I find myself begging her to come back. I suppose that indicates that I'm not fully connected to reality. I haven't maintained a place for her, I have in that way been selfish, looking to my own needs, trying to fill the space she left. What do I say about that? Her presence is that empty space, it can never be filled. I...

 I'm still moving boxes out of storage, both literally and figurativly.

 Yesterday I received a collar for Autumn, black with rhinestones, which I had ordered. Emma had always wanted to get it, she said she would have gotten a diamond collar when she hit the lottery. A strange and bittersweet kind of thing, keeping her desires, doing as she wished. 

 I unpacked and distributed about 15 cardboard boxes from our storage space. Funny how I still say "Our". A lot of Emma's clothing, lingerie and peignoirs that she had saved. Things we had put away, photographs, cards, and my old life. That's what boxes are for, to store the things you no longer need, but still think you may want some day. I found clothes that I had forgotten about, things Emma hadn't liked, from my life before her. 

 I remembered that Emma wasn't my beginning. That I did have a life before her, and that I can have a life after. 

 I had felt that it was best to get as much done with the boxes as possible in one day, the cat collar had put me in a funky mood, as long as I was there...

Yes, I did notice that I didn't make an entry in this blog for over a month. That doesn't mean that Emma is no longer around, she just stays in the background most of the time. As I realized that February was passing and there was nothing relevant to Emma to write about, I actually made a conscious effort not to post some puff entry.

 Last Sunday Lieve and I were taking a little nap, little, I didn't take my glasses off as she fell asleep on my chest, the way Emma used to. I dozed off anyway, it was raining and our bed was very cozy. I was thinking about how much Emma had loved the rain, it seemed to make her heart beat a little faster, even as it made her want to retreat to a cozy warm place.

 Lesson one, don't fall asleep with warm thoughts of your dead wife.

 I'm not sure where dream and reality intersected, I know I was asleep for a moment at least. I became aware, not quite awake yet, of the rain, of the head on my chest and the body next to me. You know where this...

 There was a Mass dedicated to Emma today, she had asked for no services but had allowed that a mass could be held at least six months after her passing. Today also happens to be five months since my first date with Lieve.

 Emma's cousin Lorraine made the arrangements, it was at Annunciation Church. Lorraine, Emma's Aunt Anna and cousin John, myself and Lieve were there, as well as several members of Lorraine's family.

 I hadn't been to a Catholic Mass in quite some time,  I had forgotten how the sermon has nothing to do with the Biblical verses that are read, so today in Emma's honor we heard an anti abortion sermon, fitting only in that one of the reasons that she didn't attend a church was because of the politicizing of the church's religious views. 

 As I sat there, I remembered what she did like about Mass. The beauty of the church, the music, the sense of family. I thought of the last time we had been to Annunciation, for Rose's funeral. How she had preferred Saint Nicholas, her childhood parrish. Mostly I thought about Emma. I haven't done that very much lately, just think about...

 Twelve years ago tonight was my first date with Emma. This morning I sit writing this in Lieve's (our) living room, waiting for Fedex to deliver our wedding rings.

 Last night we watched the film "Up", an animated feature which I had always been interested in. Lieve said it was a sweet story about the love between two people. The silent sequence in the beginning, describing the lives and dreams of the couple had me in tears, so familiar, so nicely portrayed, so clearly a parallel of my relationship with Emma. Lieve hadn't realized, but was there to comfort me.

  This morning I woke in Lieve's arms, as we lay together enjoying the beautiful autumn day outside the window and going over our plans for the morning I realized the date. We spoke about it, my memories of the weather trhat evening (raining when I picked Emma up), how Emma had come out to my car, what we were wearing, Emma's makeup, how the date went, the little details of the night, the similarities to Lieve and I. Like the way I had gone downstairs to get another bottle of wine and returned to find Emma in...

 Life goes on.

 This was Emma's favorite time of year, the cooler days, the approach of her birthday and her favorite holiday, Halloween. She loved Winter, but the changes of Autumn seemed to bring her the most pleasure.

 She still walks with me, I know she'll never leave. My counselor tells me to ride out the moments of grief, but they aren't grief, not quite pleasant, but not really sad. Not quite welcome, but not to run from. A time to sigh and remember, almost always, but not always, with a tear. I would not turn away from her. 

 I find that as I begin to watch television again that there are programs that are too painful to watch. I can't watch Top Chef, because I never know when I'll see a glimpse of an episode we had watched together. That happened last week, and all the memories of where we were when we had watched it came back. Pretty much anything that we shared I can't handle alone, but then, I haven't been watching much television anyway. 

 Her family has gone back to their own worlds. They were never close in the classical sense, even when she...

I woke early, and ended up posting this as a comment on the 31 May entry. I also wanted to put it here with the photograph that triggered it, if it is the photo and not something else that was the trigger. I'm still confused, and may stay that way for some time.

 Fittingly under the post titled "Memorial Day" I commented:

I sit here in my bed in Gloucester, crying my eyes out, scared, confused, lost.

For some reason this morning at 0600 I was going through the photos in my phone. I found a profile, a wistful look through a window. I had no idea when it was taken or where, I checked the date, 30 May 2010. I wanted to send it to Lieve, she loves my profile, even unshaven as in the photograph. I checked the date in my phone, somehow I had marked 30 May as Lieve's birthday, it isn't, but there was her name and birthday candles.

I came here to see what I was doing that day. This is when she knew. There was no next year, there was no trip for us together. She knew, but kept me going. She...

 I went ahead and checked out the personal ads. I had a variety of mixed feelings, for one thing, it's not like when I met Emma, most of the ads are pretty raunchy. One stood out, no photo, brief description, and a flaw. We were listed as being incompatible because I was the wrong sex. She listed nothing about being interested in women so I wrote to her to let her know about the glitch. She wrote back, it went from there. We met, had dinner, spent some time together, it's very nice. Too nice, I can't find anything wrong, except that my wife just died less than two months ago. I didn't think I'd be capable of having feelings for a woman again, ever, and now I'm not sure why I do. But I do. That spooks me a little as well, this is so much like the way I met Emma, and although she is nothing like Emma, she is wonderful in her own ways. I know that I'm supposed to be fragile and vulnerable right now, so there are natural braking mechanisms in place, she lives in Princeton and has two teenagers for starters, no...

 There remain moments in which I can barely will my heart to beat, but those moments are fewer and farther between.

 A few months ago I expected to be a basket case, comatose for months or even years after Emma. Today I can see light at the end of the tunnel.  I came closer to actually cooking dinner tonight than I have in months. Protien, starch, vegetable, more than one plate, only one componant in the microwave. Getting there.

 Last weekend I visited my friend Sue, who was in town visiting her sister Amy. We stayed up talking until 0300, and since I normally get up around 0530, my sleep pattern is just coming back into phase now. Amy had lost her first husband to a cancer several years ago, and her counsel was very healing. 

 I felt I had rounded a corner, but I've learned that there is always another corner ahead. Cautiously, I am opening my eyes to a life without Emma. I'm looking at what's out there and whether doing it alone is a reasonable decision. I think about how I met Emma and am intrigued by what might be in the personals today. I...

 I am hoping that this is not how I will measure the remainder of my life. How long it's been since Emma. 

 Nunzio recieved the name tag for the urn, it's not quite what I expected, the dates are in the American format, but she was an American, no matter how fiercely she identified with her Sicilian background. 

 I made the reservations for a trip North, to Gloucester Massachusetts, I'm taking the train up the weekend after Labor Day, figured I'd miss the crowds, there's a little Inn within walking distance of an "Artist's Colony" and a couple of beaches, quite a few restaurants in the area, looks like I can find solitude and beauty.

 Emma is still all over the apartment, everything brings her back to me, not close enough to touch, just close enough to miss her more. I don't suppose that will change. I noticed in a photo from Irene's party that my lips are mishapen, they look flat and loose, too much biting them I suppose. I've never been that concerned with my appearance, but it does look odd.

 One friend described this as being the hardest part, after everyone else goes back to...

Tomorrow marks four weeks since Emma left us. In some ways I can't believe it's been that long, and in others it seems to have been much longer. I'm still not thinking of her in the past tense, I expect her to be home in the evening, next to me when I wake. I keep wanting to ask her things, and there's no where I can turn for those answers. 

 I miss her, everything about her, even the way she could be impatient with me at times. I know we didn't have a perfect relationship all the time, but all I can remember are the good times. I think about how we would spend our weekends, and there's no way to replace that. That's the problem, there's no way to fill this void. The intimacy that we shared was so intense, I could never open my soul like that to another person. Living without that openness has no appeal. I can function, but there's no joy in life. I'm not sure I can get used to that, I don't understand why I should want to.

 I went to Irene's yesterday, it was very pleasant, lots of faces I...