Our bathroom has a Jack and Jill vanity which is the stupidest name for two sinks in a master bath … because Jack and Jill were siblings and how many siblings share a master bath?! You could just as easily call them Snow White and Rose Red sinks or Drusilla and Anastasia sinks …. or Jacob and Ludwig sinks (probably not Gaston and LeFou since they’re besties rather than siblings).

Anyway, now that the floors are dry and curing we can walk on them (no furniture until Saturday though), and I’m back to packing and cleaning out. I *thought* that I had finished going through Ken’s side of the vanity last year but opening the cabinet door last night was all the proof I needed that, in fact, apparently all I did last year was move stuff around (and probably cry). It’s a good argument against trying to go through things before you’re ready since you’ll just have to do it again later.

The number of things we’ve done *without* Ken is long enough now that we can no longer keep track and that’s probably good for my sanity at least. Everything we do from now on will be a thing we’ve done *without* Ken so keeping track is just another emotional Lego to step on during a middle-of-the-night walk to the bathroom.

Most weeks at our Caring Place meeting, the adults talk about the high point and the low point of the week. We have a lot in common — our low points usually involve a combination of significant events like birthdays and anniversaries and the expectations of others. Don’t get me wrong. Those “others” are our friends and families and colleagues and we are all so grateful to them. However, we’re also realizing deeply that EACH of us mourns in a completely private and inexplicable way. Even within our group, we are each unique in our mourning. How can we explain to others when we don’t, ourselves, understand what sends us down the grief spiral? And how can we help our children when they too experience grief in their own way?