Wake me up when September ends

Sleep is harder and harder to come by in our house. Critter can't get to sleep. I can't stay asleep. Even our trusty old dog wanders the house at night, checking on each of us and whining.

September 25 looms large. I know I have put too much stock in the date, but that awareness doesn't stop me from counting down the days. The first year is the worst, you see, and I desperately want to be finished with the worst.

I have a few more things to take care of in the next 24 days. There's one old friend I haven't talked to and I'm not sure if she has heard about S through the grapevine. I fear running into her at Home Depot and telling her my story in the paint department. I have to call her. I have to better organize some boxes of memories for the girls and for myself. I'd like to learn to sleep in the middle of the bed. I always start out there, and I always find myself right along the edge again by the time I wake up.

Today I am grateful for my family of women - my mother, three sisters, aunt, sister-in-law, nieces, daughters and friends who have been absolutely everything I needed them to be. They have known exactly how to give me the right amount of help and the right amount of space. In a meditation that helped get me through the early stages of raw grief, I would picture myself and my daughters floating on our backs, hand in hand, seemingly weightless. But we weren't weightless at all, we were being held up by the outstretched arms of all of the amazing women in our lives. I cannot imagine greater strength.