When I'm 64

In a few days, it will be 6 months since we saw Dan for the last time on this side of Heaven.  I started writing this when it had been 5 months, but summer consumed all of us around here with enough activities to suspend reality temporarily.  6 months is not a very long time in the grand scheme of things, but it can feel like an eternity.  I always think of it terms of if he were alive - before all of this, if Dan had said he would be gone for 6 months and we could have absolutely no contact with him....it would be excruciating...and, at times, it is.  Late spring and summer were full of those dreaded 'firsts' without him...Mother's Day, my daughter's 15th birthday, Father's Day, Dan's birthday, our youngest son's 9th birthday...all within the span of about 6 weeks.  We also took a trip to Colorado that Dan would've loved.   As one of our excursions, we somehow managed to get 12 people (that's counting friends and family who were part of our group) up and down what seemed like Mt. Everest.  It was actually only a small portion of a beautiful mountain in Colorado, but the round trip was over 6 miles (mountain miles!)  Let me tell you that it was not an easy hike, especially with my 4 kids.  They were troopers, though, and I know Dan would have been so proud to see them accomplish such a feat.  Here's my secret about the trip....I had brought Dan's ashes to Colorado with the intent to spread them on our hike at a place called Blue Lake.  It was the endpoint of our hike up the mountain and my friends who are familiar with the area and have visited several times said it was like a postcard. After seeing it, I'd have to agree.  I had been trying to decide what to do with his ashes and thought that taking them to a beautiful place that he would've loved would be a fitting tribute.  The day before the hike, my sister and I were riding in the car, listening to a mix CD that Dan had made.  The song 'When I'm 64' by the Beatles came on and I lost it.  It made me miss Dan so much and it reminded me that we will not grow older together.  He will always be 40.  My sister wisely suggested that maybe it just wasn't time yet to say goodbye in that way.  I was not ready even though I thought I was.  The longer he's gone, the tighter I want to hold on.  It might be hard for some to understand, but I think when the one you love is suffering and dies, among all of the initial emotions is a tiny bit of relief that their pain is over.  For me, that feeling is being incrementally replaced with wishing he was still here, realizing more and more what he will not be here for.  However, even as I write that, I'm reminded that none of us knows what we will be here for.  I think my task is to be right here, right now, right where God has me.  I'll figure out,in time, what to do with these ashes and these memories and these feelings.  God knows what I'll be doing when I'm 64....