A year ago our friend Chris passed away at home, where his loving family cared for him. Grieving people are often told that the “first year is the worst,” and, less frequently, advised that people tend to be very solicitous of the grieving during that first year. The first year is awful, but is leavened by others’ support and presence. It is a great help when the support continues just as the grief does; the passage of one year is a milestone, but it does not end the pain or yearning.
If you know people who are grieving–and who does not?–please let them know that you continue to think of the person they loved, forever after that first year has passed.
Dawn. It was our friend’s last day, a Sunday, fittingly for a man of such faith.
*****
Almost five years ago, a week after my husband Jim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Chris strode into our lives. We were then only just getting to know his oldest child, who has since become like a son to me.
It’s an understatement to say it was a delicate time in our lives, given the shock and awe of that diagnosis.
Chris and his son arrived in our gravel driveway in a Crown Vic that now sports a Marine sticker. No one cuts off the driver of such a car. Jim and I went to the front door when we heard the gravel crunch and the car doors thunk shut.
Chris powered over the old pine boards to the pine green door where many others who’d known us for years hesitated and others…
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Love in the Spaces 
What a great post filled with hard earned wisdom….and that photo is stunning!
Thank you! The photo was from a -19 degree morning, which somehow creates neon-tinged sea smoke over the ocean’s surface as the sun rises through it. Word has gotten out on my little corner of the seacoast, because this year there was an entire cluster of real photographers (unlike me with my little Canon) out on the sole sub-freezing winter day that created a similar scene.
Well your photos are still fabulous….and perhaps not all the ‘proper’ photographers knew what they were doing…..they might have been practising 😆💕