This was supposed to be MY holiday season!

 Eleven months ago, I just knew that by this time life would be back to normal.  This would be the best Christmas ever....

Nope.  

Okay there are some good things, I have gotten to see my kids regularly.  My kitchen is done.  I will get to decorate this year.  So, I am grateful for those things, very grateful. 

BUT!

One of my best friends in the world died on Bill's birthday.  Another friend is beginning the decent into going to the next life.  My heart is so heavy I can hardly stand it.

I am trying to soldier on, but somehow, it's just too much.   I know it's all a part of life, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

I'm so down I just want to sleep.  Correction, I just want to climb into Bill's arms and sleep for days.  

Steven my nephew is staying with us.  Okay his is fine as far as house guests go, but I really just want Bill here.  I waited over 20 years to live with my husband, and now I have Steve here.  He was here last year too, so Bill thinks I should be patient.  I'm trying.  I just want my home to just be US!

To top things off I just miss Jim so much!  I tried to go see him most days.  For some reason I just knew he would be okay.  Even not being able to walk anymore I thought he would find something to do in his bed or wheel chair and we could have these great talks like we use too.

So many times, I can remember driving around Tucson at night and we would make a plan.  Most of the time it was about silly things, but we would plan the future, or laugh about stupid things we had done while apart.

And I get mad all over again about his drug use.  It took him being confined to a bed before it occurred to him to say "I'm sorry" about some of the crap he put me through.  

I don't think Bill liked Jim too much, Jim had broken my heart too many times.  When Jim was bad, he was the worst!!!  But when he was sober, he was just Amazing!

I have a key fob he gave me when I was 19.  It says "Damn I'm good".  I think it was more to his benefit than mine, but he gave me that silly piece of brass, and I have carried it on my keychain for 40 years.  

My mind keeps going over the years together, from middle school to our 50's, to the night before he died.  I was holding his hand when the doctor told him he had two weeks to three months before the infection in his bones would kill him.  Cheryl was stroking his head.  (It was one of the few pleasures he had after losing so much feeling in his body.)

I didn't believe it, and I think neither did he.  He took it better than Cheryl, (his ex-girlfriend, and I'm thinking the woman he KNEW he should have married) or I did.  I managed not to cry, and talked to him while Cheryl excused herself to calm down.

He asked me what I thought, and I told him honestly.  

I don't believe in kicking a man when he is down, but I did tell him my thoughts, and ended it with "you know I have seen you naked more than once, and not once did I notice an expiration date on you"

Three weeks and one day later my friend of over 50 years was gone.

Now my friend Donna who has MS is heading toward the same tunnel that Jim went into, and my heart just breaks.  I haven't had too many friends I KNEW I could call at 2am and they would show up with a shovel with NO questions asked.  

Like Jim I am going to hold on to Donna like she is my last dollar.  I made sure Jim knew I loved him until the very end, and I will do the same with Donna.  I hate that they are leaving me alone, but I figure someone needs to read the map around Heaven, and my eyesight has never been good.