Into the Light

Gone too soon . . .

Christmas Season 2017 . . .

What will I remember? The snow and cold and beautiful Christmas-card like wonderland outside our windows.

Yes, but most of all I will remember Pam.

Words are hard to come by today, even for me as a writer, so I just wrote down my thoughts:

Christmas Eve and onward . . .

So this is what it’s like to lose one’s best friend. It sucks!

A few short nights ago we talked for hours. Maybe she knew it might be the last time. I wish I’d known.

She’s not gone yet, but the fact that I can’t call and talk to her, hear her laugh and listen to her sage advice, like in the past, hurts. Sometimes unbearably. That I hide.

Day by day she’s fading. She is well aware of it, but still is trying hard to make memories for us who will be left behind. I find it hard to leave her bedside these days. She’s much braver than I am.

Time flies, even when one wants it to stand still. Every day family and friends pray and visit hoping for a miracle. She has remained strong way too long and the disease is now taking over.

Once again she has helped us who will be left behind. I’m at the point now that wishing she would hold on longer makes me feel guilty.

But still I do.

January 2, 2018 . . .

This is the day she chose to leave us.

She knew we’d grieve no matter when it happened, but hoped she had paved the way to make our transition easier.

That will be her lasting legacy…

Rest in peace dear Pam, until we meet again.

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BEYOND THE VEIL

So, I keep getting messages that I haven’t ‘posted’ to my blog now for the last 209 days.

Wow! That did surprise me somewhat, but then I remembered it was a post about how my submissions to the 2017 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition had fared. I did very well and was very proud of all my writings.

I had been entering this competition for years and in 2016 as a finalist decided to make the trip with my grandson Evan, a semi-finalist, to New Orleans for the WORDS & MUSIC awards celebration.

This year I have nothing. Oh, I have things I’ve written in the past which I could have submitted but this year I won’t be participating.

A death can do that to a person.

Sometimes I argue with myself that I’m just suffering from writer’s block. But I know that’s is not really the case. And it’s not depression although some days that is the result. It is like I’m living in a void, a hollow, empty space, no colours, sound or other stimuli. Just blah.

Yesterday I went to the celebration of a young life lost too soon. It made me realize once again that we all think we have more time – but we do not. Time, and what we do with it, becomes more and more precious. I intend to use mine…

Thus for 2018 I am resigned to missing the Words & Music competition deadline of May 15th.

I am hoping however, that by talking this through It will help me lift my mental funk and get back to my latest book project.

As Pam would have said: “There is always next year!”