This past weekend - with friends - at the lake - I wrote this -

Each day waking up is a job. I wake early, before anyone else is up. Trying to be quiet, trying to get back to sleep, trying to think of anything but those days in the hospital. How Tom E. looked, who did I call?, who was there, the doctor's tears, Tom's fever, my song to him as he lay there...

I get up, as if being upright will drop these things from my head down to my heart where they will forever be - stored in tears - like specimens in a jar of fluid.

My head is the place I can bring other things - what time to go home today, what should I wear, what is the weather like, is anyone else up, what cleaning should we do, where are my cigarettes? The busy thoughts that when I am upright might even fill my head so much that I will have minutes, maybe even hours that won't include why? why me? why my family? -- Why not?

The sun is shining once more. Windy, the leaves on the trees wave to me, call me, Hello! You are alive! Notice us! We are still beautiful! The blue water moves in the breeze, a wind chime making morning music, birds twittering, the American flag waving in the wind.

All the things my head can notice while my heart stores my sadness.  Until the fluid that stores my grief overflows and once more tears fall - relieving the pressure - so that one more day I can carry the past in my chest without it breaking open.

Thanks again for listening.