Even though two of the friends on the “schedule” for today had to cancel, I was lucky that another friend wound up coming over with her son for a play date with Audrey.  It helped the long morning on another rainy day to go much faster.  


Meanwhile, so many thoughts were floating around my  head this morning.  Last night was one of my lowest points since all this began, and I was chatting online with Sarah- (one of my new widow friends), telling her how it’s becoming so much more real now- “Yes, this is about that time,” she wrote.  


It’s amazing to me how I have done nothing but the work of grieving for the past 50 days and then it feels as though I’m right at the very beginning again.  The horror is fresh- the loss is new- and again, I can’t believe all of this is about- you.


I remembered something random about Dan or us I really wanted to jot down in the other journal I’m keeping of stuff like that, but I later forgot.  I remember it was something really sweet or meaningful so I’m upset now.  I hope it resurfaces again at some point.  


I was thinking about how it’s really time to move Audrey to a booster seat- but how I hate to make changes like these.  A part of me worries, that the more I change, the more likely she will forget Dan.  But I can not stop Audrey from growing and changing so I’m trying to think of the things I can keep consistent/steady while all of those other changes happen.  I had decided to renew our lease for six months here- then leaning towards a year- and now sometimes I think that moving also- would start Audrey on a new chapter of her life, and neither she nor I would have any associations with Dan in the new place.  So sometimes I think about staying for a while.  I guess I’ll know when the time is right.


I took a shower and tried to remove some of the “deh”- Korean for dead skin- on my arms with my thumb.  Koreans are really into body scrubs that get rid of all that dead skin, and they use little wash cloths to help with the exfoliation, but Dan swore the best way was with his thumb and fingers.  He took really long showers because he was getting it all off and claimed that was the reason for his perfect, smooth skin.  He really did have beautiful skin and I hope Audrey gets it.  Sometimes he would come in the shower and help me get my own “deh” off.  He would seem really proud because so much was coming off.  And he would lecture me a bit on how I needed to do this myself more often.  


While in the shower, I also thought about water.  I can never view water in quite the same way obviously.  Before this, I thought water quite a beautiful thing.  Now it is a potential killer.  I thought about how babies love to splash in the water, but can drown in one or two inches.  I thought about crystal clear oceans and destructive tsunamis.  


Later, we ate lunch.  I peeled some pieces of orange for Audrey, careful not to give her the pithy parts.  I thought about how I want to do that for her in life- remove the bitter parts.  I don’t want her to face a life marked or defined by sorrow as some who lose a parent do.  My friend Ann told me last night she is praying for Audrey each day and when she does, she rejects those notions and prays she’ll have a truly abundant life.  I too have started praying for Audrey- the first real prayers I’ve uttered since.  Dan’s loss can not be replaced, but I am believing a life marked with sorrow can also be beautiful.  


I did a load of laundry and as I went to put Audrey’s sheet back on her bed, I heard the rattle of the first bunny she’d ever gotten when she was a baby.  It reminded me of another sweet way her dad was looking out for her.  He was convinced the sound of the rattle as she moved around during the night was disturbing her.  “I really think it’s too loud,” he insisted.  So, I took it out.  A few weeks ago she found it in her bin of stuffed animals and wanted it back.  


I injured myself twice this morning.  First a large splinter of wood from our dish rack went under my thumbnail and caused me to scream.  Currently, I’m icing my nose with Audrey’s little pink cat ice pack because while I was pulling her clean sheet tightly over her crib mattress- I pulled really hard and actually punched myself in the nose- and I was wearing glasses.  I screamed again.  Dan might have laughed.  But I thought about how small these injuries are, but how they really hurt.  I thought about what it felt like to die the way Dan did and if it hurt.  


I wrote a song for a friend after her mom was killed instantly in a car crash a couple of years ago.  I was pregnant with Audrey and read the email from my friend while sitting on my couch in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.  I was crying immediately when I read the words “killed instantly,” and Dan, who was getting ready for work, came out to find me in that state.  “What happened?” he was worried.  And I told him.


Right after he left for work, these words fell into my head for a very simple song.  Later I asked Dan to play the piano and record it for me very simply at our house.  We did.  It was the last recording we have ever made together.  It’s called “Comfort You” and I tried to attach it here but eventually gave up.  Interestingly enough, a few months later when a friend told me her childhood friend’s husband had suddenly died, I sent my friend this song.  This woman is Sarah- whom I mentioned above and whom I talk with all the time now.  


What’s interesting to me now is that how I referenced water in the lyrics- I described it as clear and mysterious and I asked for:


“Comfort, invisible, wordless,
let it be like water, it’s clear and mysterious.
Like the light as the sun’s going down on us…
comfort, comfort you now.”