Survival Post

I have survived HH’s 50th birthday bash with my sanity mostly intact.

A week later we got up at 3:30 am to catch the train to attend the funeral of our friend Mike at noon. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and late summer vibes and butterflies. We got to meet his family and friends we’d heard a lot about during the many years of our friendship (he was friends with HH over 30 years, and I counted him as one of my close friends for over 20 years). There’s a plan to meet up with some of his friends, his brother, nephews, and his partner next year for a memorial hiking tour. I think he’d love that.

Thankfully a good friend who lives only an hour away from where the funeral was let us stay with her for the rest of the weekend, so we didn’t have to endure six hours on the train again right away.

HH cried so hard at the funeral that I was too busy steadying him for tears of my own. Instead, grief keeps catching me unawares at odd moments. Every other day or so, I feel as if I suddenly stumble and plummet into a black hole. I keep hearing Mike’s voice and his exuberant, extravagant greeting, and I can’t wrap my mind around the fact I’ll never hear his voice again. And I wonder when I’ll forget what he sounded like.

In other news: In July I applied to rent a garden from the local rabbit breeders association. There were ten applicants, so my chances were not fabulous, and I figured that behind the scenes it was already a done deal when I heard that a friend of the current tenant had also applied. However, I couldn’t help going back to the garden, and I ended up chatting with my prospective garden neighbours quite a few times. I guess that helped, because… I got the garden! I’m in the process of dealing with the paperwork and getting the garden design approved by the committee. In a week or so I’ll take over the garden from the current tenant.

So now I’m researching plants and soil and mulch and tools. I hope to build and fill four square raised beds and prep one bed on the ground according to the “back to Eden” method before winter, and maybe plant some roses and column fruit trees and some bulbs for spring flowers. Maybe I’ll get around to sharing a few pictures.