There are three things that are hard.  Going to bed at night and then getting up in the morning are hard.  By far the most difficult is sitting at the desk.  We have a huge double built in desk that David made and it's where all the photos and "stuff" are.  David would get up in the morning and sit with coffee checking the stock market.  I got up later and came to kiss him good morning, then fed the chickens and walked the dog.  Once those chores were done I would get my coffee and join him there.  We spent some of every morning sharing news, sitting side by side.  It was one of the happiest moments of many in my day.  Some days I simply can't face it and I take the laptop elsewhere.  I have yet to turn on his computer, that is something that will have to wait for quite some time. 

Most days I walk around feeling as if I have been kicked in the chest.  That is where I feel my grief the most.  A woman friend from church gave me a heart shaped rock she found in the river by her house.  She prayed with it and gave it to me along with a wonderful meal.  Sometimes holding that rock in the center of my chest takes some of the ache away.  The power of love, and prayer, and rocks, and river.

Every day seems full of firsts; I did not expect so many.  So many little everyday firsts that sometimes cycle around and around.  Today I went to a plant sale that we went to every year.  We shared a weakness for growing things and we could always find something we simply had to have.  I had to breathe deeply as I walked around the booths, but I bought a fringe tree to plant at the entrance to our property and a curly willow to put next to the spring, and my annual pineapple sage that I can never get to overwinter. 

The curly willow is a small sprig of a thing and the couple that sold it to me were so lovely.  Old mountain folks with white hair, some missing teeth, and a stump of a cigar.  You could tell they had grown up together, they knew each others stories and teased each other as they smiled fondly. The man winked at me as I left.  Carrie has a song with the phrase:  They wore love like lightening, it was something to see, with the face of their true love, set up on their sleeves.  I always knew I would never have that kind of time with David, we met too late in life to grow up together.  But we wore our love like lightening and it was something to see.