Yesterday

Yesterday it was one year after Ann died. It doesn't seem like a year yet, but it was. The first Confusing thing wqas the Weather! Where was the vicious wind and all that blowing snow? It was 62 degrees F. and Sunny. Great day, just disorienting.

I went with the friend who came over the night Ann died to Ann's and my favorite restaurant, since Starbucks stopped selling any food besides deserts. Ann was diabetic, so we had to stop going there.

As we ate I missed Ann terribly. She used to call me a "curryphyl", and she was and is right, but I kept wishing my food would become flavorless, so She could taste it once again. But it was delicious. We talked some about Ann and the fun the two of us had together.

Then I bought two "tube feeders" (tube shaped) one for raw peanuts and one for seed, and my friend had a tall shepherd's crook hook to hang the one with seeds in it on. We hung the peanuts on an empty metal close line pole. I wanted to honor Ann's memory by generosity, because it was right and she was a very generous and giving person. So I will keep feeding birds. I gave small gifts to two friends, including the friend who ate lunch with me and took me bird feeder shopping. I have two more gifts to go. They will be given out this week.

Then we came back home, my rent house is home now, and hung the flapit (bird) feeders. I had previously bought a feeder for suit balls, but in Yesterday's weather they would have just melted into a big grease puddle. Will keep them in their package until it gets really cold and birds need the fat to keep warm.

The lady I spent the day with then pinned and taped a new seam for me to sew and left.

I was quiet last night, just thinking and sitting on the couch we used to share, talking to Ann.

I started burning a candle in Ann's memory on the evening of Jan. 31st, the last evening we ate together and talked. While I'm at home, it will keep burning, unless I am ready to sleep. I took that candle into my altar and drummed and chanted, prayed for a while. But the candle has a scent I think Ann would enjoy. My altar shares a room with the three birds still living and healthy now. So since chemicals released by burning can kill small birds, who, with the exception of paraketes, have no sense of smell, I couldn't stay long.

I was in shock last year at this time, so kept thinking o what would have been happening last year at the same time of night. Knew it was time for Ann to eat or she'd have a blood sugar crash, went in to wake her, she is gone. Slogged through snow in knee boots searching, called 911, etc.

It is not rational, but I kept hoping I'd hear from Ann in a dream or something. Couldn't sleep last night though, wound up. Crashed about 2:00 A.M. and my bedshaker alarm didn't work this morning, so skipped breakfast and coffee to be ready to run errands with a lady I pay to take me places. This is first thing I have done since getting home.

On Jan. 31, I put a string of multi-colored Christmas lights in front window draped around a sign saying, "In memory of Ann Mote." Have left the lights on day and night.

Tonight at our Sangha (gathering of Buddhists) meeting instead of lighting incense for the dedication of our time together, I will ask that the candle which has burned in memory of Ann be used instead. Since everyone in the group knew her, I think they will be happy to do this and we will speak our dedication over the candle.

Tomorrow I will probably stop burning the candle and may take down the lights, or at least stop running them during the day when they can barely be seen. I don't want to stop burning the candle, it will sort of feel like saying good-bye again, painful.

I did some other things on the 31st, set up my "shrine room" a place to go and be quiet, to go in times of trouble and confusion. My cedar chest is smaller than Ann's. So I moved hers From what has become a "shrine room" into my bedroom where it stores curtains and blankets.

The birds will just have to get used to soft drumming and chanting in there. But I won't subject them to loud bells or singing bowls. I think sometime when I finish clearing it up in there and our Sangha group happens to be small, our group might like to meditate in there. It will be a beautiful room.

It was the beginning of some kind of end to the life Ann and I lived together and the beginning of a different life for me. Who knows what it will hold?