A better place to dwell

It's a chilly October evening (finally!), and the Resident Fan Boy is pulling a supper together, while we watch a performance of all six Brandenburg Concerti.  

The music is like a warm, firm but gentle massage.  Furthermore, it's a Doctor Who special night complete with several regenerations, and our cat, who is fourteen pounds and roughly the size of a lithe and lethal mini-puma, kneads and nestles into the crook of my arm.  By the end of the evening, I am so relaxed that my FitBit thinks I've been asleep for an hour and twenty minutes, even though the show was pretty exciting, and I stayed awake through all of it.

Then I remember what day it is.

Today is the fifth anniversary of our last day in Hades.  On an unseasonably warm afternoon, brilliant with fall colours, I took younger daughter on a last visit to the National Gallery and that evening, walked through the dark streets of Centretown with elder daughter and the Accent Snob, who would be staying behind.  Elder daughter had taken an apartment a few blocks from her workplace, and the Accent Snob was far too elderly to survive the trauma of a plane trip. The only pull on my heartstrings were for the separation from my elder daughter (whom I would see again for Christmas) and my dog (whom I never saw again), plus the trauma my anxious and autistic younger daughter experienced, being taken away from the only home she remembered.

Tonight, I pull myself back from the memories of that day.  Not because of the grief, but because of my shame at my lack of grief.

Some things are not improved by dwelling on them.

I have found a better place to dwell.