Some of those tricky bastard spammers leave me such nice comments that I want to keep them, until I see they’re trying to promote porn sites or cheap Viagra or something. But I almost feel happy when I read,”So interesting site, thanks! Beauty is only word that comes to mind after viewing this website. Very nice work!”

Then I see they’re advertising buying diet pills online and my heart sinks, just a little.

I just got home from a full day of working at my Mom’s. At first it was hard for her to throw her junk (and it is junk, ask anyone) into the dumpster, but as the day went on she was more able to say, yeah, toss it.

My 19 year old niece Audrey (my brother’s daughter) came over to help today. Despite the fact that she can drive and I don’t know how and it makes me feel like a bit of an idiot I was so happy to see her. My sister Monica stopped by after work and helped pack some boxes and I was relieved to have some help. We had to set my Mom up on a chair and bring things to her to sort through. My Mom was kind of mean and grumpy all day. I started thinking around 8 pm, Shit, why is she being such a bitch when she has all these people here helping her? Then I realized that she was stressed and in pain and embarrassed by the sheer magnitude of her stuff. She truly has more stuff then I’ve ever seen one person have. She has about 50 times more stuff than my family of four. I only snapped at her once when she refused to throw away an old pair of moldy glass shower doors. She said that she had a plan for them, and I told her they were garbage, but not in such nice words. I apologized later. This has been tough on us all.

Polly and Nathan worked their little butts off and I am very proud of them both. Tomorrow, more of the same. Audrey said she was willing to have my kids come over to spend the night anytime. I might just take her up on that. Alex and I could spend some alone time together without being constantly interrupted and maybe even have the chance to make love without the fear of someone walking through the door. (Note to self, get lock for door). Oh who am I kidding? We are both way too tired for that. We’d end up watching TV and passing out.

@ 5 pm my Mom’s house is supposed to be empty. Tuesday, will I feel free?

So tired. Too tired to do anything but shower and crawl into bed. Polly has her first dance at school tomorrow night. I am hoping she has a good time.

After I rest from this move I am going to get rid of 50% of what I own.

I wonder who figured out that the chances of getting people to vote in an upcoming election were greatly increased if they put , “Contains Vote On Proposed Tax Increase” on the outside of the ballot envelope, right above where my name and address are. Now I want to rip the thing open and see who is trying to raise my property taxes, and why. Actually, I think I already know. I think they want more money for schools. I am for school funding, but I believe the budget should be made public record and the tax payers should have some say in the allocation of funds because no matter how much they raise taxes here in Oregon; there is never enough money for schools, even with the additional funds they received from the temporary Multnomah County Tax.

I had a moment last night while moving my Mom’s dresser and placing it on top of her car when I decided on the tattoo I am going to get. It is going to go right across my lower back, and it will read, “Yes, this is my back, and no, I will not help you move.” It will be a magical tattoo. I will not have to wear skimpy clothing to show it off, but rather anyone who asks for me to lift anything heavier than 15 lbs. will be the recipient of x-ray vision that will temporarily allow them to see through my clothing to my lower back and read the words there.

I haven’t been having panic attacks during this stressful time of trying to move my Mom out of a 4000 square foot house into an 800 square foot apartment, just a constant state of anxiety. This state is probably enabling me to do things such as carry dryers up flights of stairs single handedly. There was the moment when we were headed to the new apartment with the back of her wagon loaded and an old sewing machine that doesn’t even work strapped to the top of the car and she went to make a turn, asked herself, “DO, I want to go this way, no” slammed on the brakes, and turned and went down another street. That caused my heart to race and my head to whirl. Cars keep their distance from you when you have large pieces of furniture strapped to the top of your car, and so they should. I told my Mom that instead of spending hours in psychotherapy trying to figure out why I have panic disorder I am just going to bring her into the room and present her wordlessly to my doctor.

She promised me that this move she was going to pay someone to do it, but alas she ran out of money and we are once again running the loads ourselves. None of my siblings are answering their phones, and my Mom’s best friend, the one who owns a pick up truck, made a spur of the moment trip to the beach. I can’t say that I blame any of them. I told my Mom last night to rent a UHAUL. This is ridiculous and I have reached the frayed ends of my rope. She keeps apologizing and I feel so bad that I can’t abandon her. I have no idea how she is going to have that house empty by the 31st but I guess we’ll manage somehow.

I took today off so that I could clean my house and do the laundry. Today is my husband’s birthday and he is asleep as he has to work tonight. I want to shower him with hugs and kisses and cook him his favorite meal and bake him a cheesecake but we decided to wait for his days off to celebrate .Instead I try to quietly clean while he sleeps. I miss him so much.

I continue to do the socially irresponsible thing and list free items on craigslist. I am so happy when people come and take things away. This Japanese man came with his little son. His English wasn’t very good. He took every book we had out there for free. These books ranged from Advanced Calculus textbooks to women’s sexual fantasies by Nancy Friday. I brought those over. I figure I might as well take advantage of this time to get rid of my crap too. He caught me on my way outside to take the recycling out and asked me to read him the labels of every can of paint, every tub of spackle, every can of liquid nails. “What this for?” he asked. I don’t know why he bothered to ask because he took every can. Finally he turned to my Mom, who had come outside by this time, and asked if his little boy could use the bathroom. My Mom looked to me and I shrugged my shoulders and nodded yes. He didn’t strike me as the axe murdering kind, plus his little boy was squeezing himself in front in that tell all way and having two kids of my own I remember how they always needed to pee at the most inopportune times. My Mom led him into the front bathroom and after he shut the door we could hear him yelling, “Too small! Too small!”  I have no idea what was freaking him out. That bathroom is normal sized and it’s never flipped my claustrophobic trigger. After some time of him yelling and my Mom and me looking at this Dad to see if he was going to do anything about this yelling boy the father finally went and opened the door. “Just pee now!” he commanded .The door slammed and the dad waited, arms folded across his chest. When the door finally opened and the boy peeked out the Dad pushed his way in, turned to my Mom and said, “There is some wetness on your floor.” My Mom spun on her heel and came back quick as a flash with a bucket of steaming bleach and water and a mop. The boy saw my Mom coming; her lips all gone from being set in a determined line, and started wailing “AHHHHHH!”

The man took his things and rushed out of there. I don’t think my Mom will ask me first before she lets the next stranger into her house to use the facilities. In fact I am sure of it.

She looked at me after their minivan had pulled away and said, “I have no idea what that boy was talking about. Obviously he was trying to say, “Too big! Too big!”

I posted a bunch of free stuff on craigslist for my Mom this morning.

This website has been a godsend for me over the past two years. I figure the stuff isn’t going to the dump and people who are truly needy can have things for free. Today I received a total of six e-mails from a certain person. This is the last one. If you were in my shoes, what, if anything, would you respond?

“YOU ARE SOCIALLY IRRESPONSIBLE!!!!!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

WITH FUEL AT $ 2.75 T0 $3.00 A GAL

AND POSSIBILY 10 TO 100 PEOPLE WASTING FUEL TO TRY TO BE THERE FIRST

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOU WERE ONE OF THESE PEOPLE !!!”

The time is 9:01 pm. I step out onto the back deck of our house to smoke cigarette number 18 of the day. The darkness is all around me, and I walk from the memory I have imbedded in my brain of the deck. I see something glisten ahead of me. I stop and feel as if I can go no further without tripping over something. I wonder then when I drew these imaginary lines around myself, lines that I have been careful not to cross. I hear a woman’s voice somewhere to the west of me. “Afraid?” she says, “You’re calling me afraid?” I light my lighter to see what was glistening on the deck before me, and into view comes my daughter’s shiny red boot, left abandoned there from her earlier playtime outside. I am disappointed somehow; not exactly sure what I thought would be shining before me. I make my way to the bench, and wearing just a tank top and my sweats, I lean against the house and let the coolness of the siding comfort my tired muscles. “I’ll show you afraid”; the voice says again, “I love you. How’s that for afraid?” I feel torn between my inadvertent eavesdropping and my desire to smoke before I head back inside.

It is only I, another victim of the urban sprawl we city dwellers must come to accept, packed in tightly we live, in houses and apartments, never meant to be built so close together. We are packed into homes with bedrooms that were meant to be closets and attics with ceilings so low we must be constantly aware of the threat of smacking our heads. “I love you, I love you. I’ve loved you for a very long time.” I recognize the sound of tears in her voice. I hope that the person she is talking to has put their arm around her. I can see the marigolds I planted in circles around my tomato plants, “to keep the bugs away”, I told my kids. They are showing me their yellow blooms. I can hardly see them, but I know they’re there. The neighbors behind us have a sensor light set up in the backyard. It goes on and off with every passing person, and cat. My peonies are almost ready to burst into bloom again, and part of me wants to put off the moment, for the anticipation is sometimes more beautiful then the moment itself.

“Do you know what?” the voice in the night asks, “I saw a picture of you as a little boy in your mother’s bedroom yesterday, and I fell in love with that little boy too.”  It is then it occurs to me that this woman is talking on the phone. Tonight the arm of the one she loves will not wrap around her as she proclaims her love to him. “Why did you have to move away?” she asks, sobbing. I stand and smash out my cigarette, leaving it to visit as a lonely butt in an ashtray with its former brothers and sisters of the pack. I could just as easily be that woman, I know. She is the faceless voice of someone whom I will not recognize tomorrow if we pass on the street. She possesses something I do not, the courage to express her feelings. I guess that I am not ready to cross that imaginary line just yet.

Before my Mom put her house on the market she tagged the plants that weren’t included in the sale, intending on taking them to her new house. Now she is digging out these plants she can’t part with and driving them to my house with an urgency usually reserved for the transportation of human organs. “Tammy, I got the lavender out! Get it in the ground as soon as possible!” Now, I love to garden. This is nerve wracking though, taking her beloved plants, each one complete with a story of when and how she got it, and being expected to make them live in my soil.

Our house was built in 1920 but apparently no one ever felt the desire to plant a garden here. In the 2 and a ½ years we’ve lived here I have slowly worked on creating a garden. Every time I thrust my shovel into the earth I hit rocks, lots and lots of big rocks. I ended up making a big pile of them and now they are partially hidden underneath the back stairs because I don’t know what to do with them. Ideally the yard should be totally rototilled and new topsoil brought in. I had that on my list of things I want to do next year.

Now with the arrival of Mom’s plants I feel a nervous sort of expectancy in the air. She says it’s okay, that she knows they might not make the move, but I feel responsible to create a garden out of them, to keep them alive for her. My thumbs don’t feel so green anymore.

Polly is home, safe and sound. She brought with her new stories of her adventures and new smells emanating from the pile of wet, muddy clothes. She wants to return to Outdoor School as a high school student, to be a camp counselor. She told me stories of fishing, touching snakes and taking hikes. It is exciting to see her growing up. The day after she returned home I received a letter from her stating that she wasn’t having fun, that she thought she was going to throw up, and would we be mad if she came home early. When I asked her about it she said that yeah, she was feeling homesick when she wrote that letter. I am glad that I didn’t get it until she was already back. It would have left me fraught with worry over her.

Nathan is doing well, so well that I haven’t wanted to say anything for fear of cursing us. He seems to have his emotions in check for the time being and I can’t even describe the relief that settles over our home when he isn’t having one of his outbursts. Hopefully this calm will last. Let me knock wood quickly.

My husband has been working too much, so much that I feel as if I never see him. He was off last night and again tonight. It is so nice to just have him beside me. Because he works the graveyard shift and sleeps days, most of my nights are spent alone in bed. Having him beside me last night was such a treat. We were watching a movie and I reached out to hold his hand. Lacing his fingers through mine he held my hand for over an hour, and it was one of those moments that are hard to describe. I felt at peace, just having him near me. I try to remember to be grateful that he has a job, as much as I do miss him.

I have decided to read “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides next. I told myself some time ago that I could not buy another book until I read everything on the shelf that I haven’t gotten to yet. I have stuck by that for months, with the exception of one book I picked up at a garage sale for a quarter. Today is a rainy day, perfect for snuggling up with a book and reading away the hours. I have a bit more housework to do and I am thinking that I’ll wait on the reading until the kids are back in school tomorrow and my husband returns to work. I don’t want to miss any opportunities to spend time with them.

I hope all my readers are having a good weekend. If you have any book or movie recommendations, please leave them in the comments. Or even if you just want to say hello. I love hearing from people.

Parents, teachers, students, celebrities - please volunteer to have a Pie Flung in Your Face!  What could be more fun?  The Pie Toss will be in the Game Room during the Harvest Faire.  Want more information?  Call M—– (503-000-0000).

I signed up to have the newsletter e-mailed to me.

Polly usually forgets to give it to me, or gives it to me late. Plus I figured it would help me deal with the paper mess I deal with on my desk. I think I’ll be skipping this volunteer opportunity. What could be more fun than having a pie flung in my face? Oh, I can think of lots of things, such as skipping this event all together.

I’m off to help my Mom rent a storage unit. Plus, she has decided to get a PO Box after hearing that woman in the office of her new complex complaining about having her mail stolen.

Polly will be home tomorrow. I hope she’s had a good time. The weather has been great all week, so she lucked out, not having the rain we usually have.

I hope everyone is having a great day. Thanks for reading.

Yesterday I went with my Mom to see her new apartment. She did this all by herself, and I was proud and relived that she had found a place to settle in for the winter. I knew that it was a 55+ community but I didn’t give it much thought, to be honest. Yesterday we worked at her house packing and preparing for her departure. She asked if I would mind going with her to put the deposit down on her new apartment. Of course I didn’t mind, and off we went.

When we arrived she showed me the main entrance, and how it is a secure building, something I had worried about and wanted for her. We went through the doors and a familiar smell hit my nose, but I exhaled and ignored its message.

We headed to the office and my Mom waited patiently for the woman behind the desk to get off the phone so that she could hand over her check as well as some income verifying statements they had asked for. When we were finally helped we sat in front of the desk and it seemed okay, routine, nothing to worry me.

Then the woman who manages the place came out of her office. Apparently she has met my Mom before because she spoke to my Mom with the easy familiarity of an old friend. She rubbed me the wrong way from the start, talking to my Mom in that condescending tone some take on with those who are older. In short, she spoke to my Mom as if she was an idiot child. Every other sentence that came from her mouth was some sort of cliché, and I found myself tuning her out until I heard her instructing my Mom to throw away the majority of her possessions because “You can’t take them with you”. What the hell? My Mom has never been one to be told what to do, but she kept doing the old nod and smile routine with this lady. My Mom asked if she could have the key to her unit so she could show it to me and they handed her some card, much like the type you get in certain hotels.

My Mom and I walked down the hall, led by this woman in charge who was pointing out the “common room” where frail and confused looking elderly people played with puzzles or games, some of them staring blankly at the big screen TV where Oprah’s head was flashing, larger than life. We passed the “library”, the “gym”, which was empty, and she looked back over her shoulder and said, “You can exercise in there.” “Or not” my Mom replied, but this elicited no response. She showed us to the door of my Mom’s new home and lectured my Mom on the quiet hours between 10 pm and 8 am. “No TV, no dishwasher, no washer or dryer, no radio, no loud talking” etc. She mentioned that they had been having trouble with residents who had their TVs up too loud and it occurred to me that some of these people might be hard of hearing but I said nothing. She asked my Mom if she had any pets, stating that while cats were allowed dogs were forbidden. “No pets” my Mom said, “just nine grandchildren.”

Left alone at last we used the key card to enter the unit and took a walk around. It didn’t take long, the place is tiny. As I entered the extra wide doorway to the bathroom I noted its spaciousness, only to realize too late after I’d opened my mouth the why of the wide doorway. There were bars everywhere on the walls, in case you needed help up, and I recognized the wide doorway was designed that way so that a wheelchair could fit in.

I kept my smile as my Mom looked at me and said, “You’re disappointed in me.”

“No, No, I am not disappointed. It’s nice.” My Mom has been reading my face for thirty odd years and she looked at me and stated what I couldn’t. “It’s kind of like a nursing home.”

I was relieved that she had said it, not me. My Mom worked in nursing homes for many years when I was a child and I knew that smell that I had tried to ignore as I entered.

I smiled and reminded her that is was just temporary. Just a warm place to sleep this winter until she decides where to buy a house. I went out onto the balcony to look around while my Mom continued to look around the apartment, no doubt wondering how she was going to fit in her china cabinet, her dining room table, and her beautiful armoire. As I stood on the patio I noticed how high up the railing was. I was glad she had chosen a ground floor unit. Thinking she wasn’t looking, I threw my leg up onto the railing, wondering if she’d be able to escape if there was a fire. She came through the sliding glass door and said, “Trying to see if I could get out in a fire?” God it’s creepy when someone knows you so well.

We headed back to the main office. In front of us was a woman with a walker, slowly making her way down the hall. Her hair was long and wild and crazy, she was wearing a nightgown, and she was in no hurry to get wherever she was going. Back at the main office we sat back down and my Mom returned the keys and confirmed that she could start moving in on the 15^th of this month. The manager started to tell my Mom about Wednesday night being Bingo night, Friday night being movie night and that there’s a shuttle bus that takes the residents on planned outings. “I need to know” said Miss Manager to my Mom, “if you will be alone on Thanksgiving and Christmas. We need an accurate head count for our celebrations.” Here I spoke up, placing my hand over my Moms and wondering when her skin got so paper thin before I said, “She will be with family for the holidays.” “What a shame”, was the reply “I was going to allow each resident one green apple martini for Christmas.” How big of her, to allow adults one alcoholic beverage. My Mom hates green apple martinis. She likes brandy, lime and soda, thank you very much. My Mom hates Bingo. My Mom is too independent to be living somewhere where you have to ask permission to have an overnight guest. I was beside myself with the urge to tell them woman to forget it, that my Mom would not be coming, that she could live with me.

A woman walked into the office, blabbering on about how someone had been stealing her mail, all the while holding a daschund in her arms. Apparently, some dogs are cats. Finally they figured out that she had locked herself out of her apartment and someone went off to let her back in.

As we were leaving I once again reminded my Mom that this is temporary, that she can buy the little house she has envisioned in her head and have her flower, herb and vegetable garden. She can set up her kiln and fire her pottery and maybe one day I’ll see her easel again, and her standing before it with brush in hand, making magic on the canvas.

I have been a bit out of sorts lately. Yesterday I took Polly to her school to leave for Outdoor School for a week. The buses were an hour late and it rained. I held up pretty well until she got onto the bus and I stood there in the rain and we mouthed things back and forth to each other, “I love you” ,”Have fun” “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” “Are you okay?”

As I stood there I started to cry but I thought I was keeping it together. I noticed that while a lot of the seats were packed with up to three kids no one sat next to Polly. I wished that they could have had Outdoor School in the spring, after she’s had a chance to make some friends. She never took her eyes off of me the whole time she waited for the bus to pull away. One of the Moms came over to where I stood and asked me, “Are you going to be okay?” I looked at her, confused. “Yes, I’m fine.” “Well I am a nurse. I just wanted to let you know. In case you need anything.”

God, I must have looked worse than I thought. I waved and blew kisses as the bus pulled away and cried most of the way home. Polly has never been away from me this many nights. Last night I skipped doing the dishes and went to bed early. This morning I got up and got Nathan off to school. When I entered the kitchen there were fruit flies everywhere. Where did they come from? As I washed the dishes I listened to the Billie Holiday CD my husband got for me, “Stormy Weather”.

I have loved her voice for so long I can’t even remember when my love for her music began. I felt better as I wiped the counters and swept the floor. The blues, cheering me up, go figure.

The reality has hit. My Mom has until October 31st to be out of her house. She has found an apartment to move in to. She is going to stay there for the winter before she decides where to buy a house. Now the problem that remains is her stuff. We have emptied the attic and the top floor and the main floor is looking pretty good. Most things are packed, and she has eliminated the furniture she doesn’t want. The problem has always been and remains to be the basement. 1300 square feet of stuff, accumulated over 40+ years, all stuffed into that concrete pit, like the stratified layers of earth studied on an archeological dig. I feel as if I’ve spent decades working on tackling this stuff because I have. Emotionally it is difficult for my Mom to deal with the memories that have been laid to rest down there, and so the stuff remains, waiting.

Yesterday we decided to tackle a large bookshelf that my brother wants. It seems a simple enough task, clearing off a shelf so that we can give it away, but the shelf holds more than books. It holds memories, painful reminders of days gone by.

First I cleared the area in front of the shelf and then I set up a chair nearby for my Mom to sit on, surrounded by boxes for sorting. I had boxes for give away, keep, and recycle. These books must have been packed onto this shelf close to 20 years ago when my Mom bought her house and have remained there untouched since then. They were covered with a thick layer of dust and when I pulled some of them out mouse shit would sprinkle onto the floor.

A very telling assortment, these books. It was almost as if my parents had been buried together right on those shelves. When my Dad died in 1985 my Mom stopped painting. On those shelves were quite a few of her art books, left there for when she could pick up the brush again and rekindle an old passion that somehow went to the grave with my Dad.

My Dad had quite a few books on that shelf too, something that surprised me because I incorrectly assumed that we had disposed of most of his things years ago.

My Dad was an engineer, but his passions were Mathematics and Science. I found books on Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics. I found blueprints he had drawn up. I was unable to discern what he had designed on these fragile pieces of paper, and I felt once again stupid as I looked at them. I was never able to match his mind, his genius IQ.I flipped through every book before I placed it on a stack for my Mom to decide on. My Mom has a bad habit of slipping things into books for safe keeping. I have found cash ($250.in one book once) checks never cashed, photos and letters, bank statements, newspaper clippings and bills yellow with age. Into my fathers books are notes he slipped, mostly mathematical equations he was working on that look to my mind to be written in a foreign tongue.

My Mom has been searching for a suicide note since he died, some sort of explanation she needs and so I kept a careful look out for anything hand written, even though I believe no such note exists.

In one Mathematics book I found a series of equations and then my father’s tiny cursive, so familiar. It took me a minute to make out the writing in the dusty dark basement but when I finally did I realized that he had placed that slip of paper on that page because he had found an error in the author’s book and after working out the equations himself he had placed it in between the pages for future reference. I wondered if he felt a feeling of satisfaction when he did so.

My Mom used to keep everything, but now the lack of time and the passage of 21 years since his suicide have changed her perspective. She tossed a lot of books into the giveaway boxes, a lot more than she kept. I saw her carefully placing the art books she has collected over the years into the “keep” boxes. When my Mom concentrates very hard her tongue comes out and she bites on it. My Grandmother has this same habit, I’ve noticed, and it always makes me smile to see the look of concentration on their faces; the total obliviousness to the tongue they bite on. I found myself hopeful that the day might come when my Mom might paint again. I miss watching her work. I miss the smells of the paints and the thinners. As a young girl I used to sit and watch her paint silently amazed as she mixed and swirled and brushed beauty onto canvases, secretly envious that I seem to have inherited none of her gifts for art. I still draw in crude one dimensional stick like figures. I used to try to paint along side my Mom, and then pretend that I was going for some abstract Picassoesqe look because the noses were all out of alignment, the mouths crooked, and the eyes different sizes.

I played the violin as a girl and never picked it up again after my Dad died. My Mom put down her brushes, I put down my bow, my Dad was laid to rest and we stumbled through the days.

I was told once by a former psychiatrist that I should write a letter to my Dad and then burn it, or bury it, or take it up to his grave and lay it on top of him. I was able to start that letter many times, but never finished it. I revert back to that 12 year old girl I once was and still am in a way. I want to ask him why he abandoned us. I want to apologize for pulling away from him in the years preceding his death. I want to tell him that with all of the advances made in the fields of mental health he could have been treated for his bipolar disorder. One day that letter will be written, but not today. I can’t. I wonder which stage of grief I am stuck in and how long this will last before I can finally achieve peace and move on with my life.

It took all day but we cleared that shelf. I explained to my Mom that we probably didn’t need to keep my Dad’s tax records from the 50s. I am guessing the chance of the audit she fears is slim.

When I got back to my house yesterday, after I had cooked, cleaned, done laundry and played with my kids I retreated to my bedroom to watch my latest video pick from Netflix. I have been working my way through the HBO series Six Feet Under. I just started season four. As I watched on the screen the characters trying to go on with their lives after the death of their father I was suddenly hit by what might be part of the great appeal this show holds for me. You see, the dead father pops up from time to time, and the children are able to talk to their Dad. He provides comments on their lives and they are able to express their grief and how much they miss each other. I have had these conversations with my Dad too, but they are only one sided, his voice silenced or replaced with mine, telling me that I am and always will be a failure. I ended up having a good cry at some point, pausing the show to wipe my tears and to blow my nose. My snot came out black and I realized that I had inhaled a lot of dust while going through those stacks and stacks of books and papers. I realized that grief is a long process. There is no magical time line, no steps, and no rules. There are just people going forward with their lives without their loved one, doing the best they can, one day at a time, for the rest of their lives.