Life Skills

Surprise! It’s me here blogging again. I did kind of disappear for a minute. I’m not quite sure why. I think I started to feel that this was a chore rather than a pleasure and an outlet. That I couldn’t live up to my early, funnier posts. Like people telling Woody Allen “I really liked when your movies were funny.” Is it weird that back when my grief was the heaviest, I often produced the funniest, most creative posts? That the words just flowed out of me?

There has been a lot of death just hanging around here, and I’m feeling kind of grouchy and unsettled. My uncle in PIttsburgh is not expected to live much longer. Every time I hear from my Dad I think it’s about Uncle Len. I even went out and bought a dress for his funeral. I guess that’s a little morbid. I also found out through my restless Googling that Sarah’s orthopedic surgeon’s wife died. That made me very sad. Finally, I found out that one of Sarah and my favorite dogs on a dog rescue channel we liked to follow together had died, right around the same time she did. Maybe Tony was there to help her through her transition.

I was at the mall the other day, shopping for my funeral dress, and I came upon one of the moms from Sarah’s former ballet class. Actually, I came upon a group of students with disabilities, and then I noticed that this woman was one of the aides with them. Some of the students go to the mall to learn how to make small transactions or other “life skills.”

We said hello to each other, and then she asked me how Sarah was. I had to tell her that Sarah had died in 2022. She was shocked. I was okay doing it, and I didn’t cry. She only had a moment because she was watching her group of kids, so I let her go and walked back to my car.

These moments when you know there really isn’t any Sarah anymore are still so hard, even after all this time. How do I hold on to her?