Summer in the City

Joe and I watched a special about the Aurora, CO massacre last night and I loved it when the commentator summed up the victim’s families emotions like this: After the shock and horror wear off, then the grief journey begins. And every day will be a struggle to deal with this loss.

Isn’t that nice? There’s nothing about closure, getting back to normal, or everything will be OK after the first year, and all that other kind of worthless schmuck people utter, especially when those people have never experienced a loss of a close person. I mean their feelings are probably in the right place, but those empty words can be so offending sometimes.

I believe no matter if you’ve lost a person in a horrible way or if you were holding their hand as they drew their last breath, your grief never ends. It is a daily struggle to come to terms with your loss. Generally, it’s not as intense as the days go by, and you learn to reconcile that loss into your life, but the struggle never ends.

You’re always thinking of that person, every single second of every single day; it never ends, because they were special to you. There is no closure, no going back to normal, just a struggle to adapt to a new normal, and a new life without that precious person in it.

The day started out cloudy, so I took advantage of the lower temperatures, and finally got to weeding out my garden beds. The good thing is that as the summer wears on, the weeds are less aggressive, so not as much to weed. The bad thing is that it’s still a lot of work and even though it was cooler, it was still humid, so I was drenched in sweat by the time I was done.

I also was privileged to harvest my first green bell peppers of the season. And they’re big fat beauties. We can’t wait to use some of them in our cooking. And I also was able to harvest a dozen or so cherry tomatoes. You can pop one of those babies into your mouth and taste the sweet wet explosion as you bite down on it.

As the day wore on, the clouds gave way to sun, and the humidity started to creep up. I drove out to the cemetery in the flower van, which doesn’t have air conditioning, so the hot wind whipped through my hair.

Someone had taken Ray’s little American flag, but that’s OK. It always amazes me what people will take, just because they’re empty handed when they come, and I guess they figure the dead share their wealth, and so they take the dead person’s mementos.

Joe and I will brave the humidity and grill some burgers this evening. I bet those little cherry tomatoes will go great with the burgers.