Bouquets of Thanks...

It's been just over two weeks since my last post, though it seems like an eternity of things have happened. When one's world explodes, it's hard to pick up and put it all back together again. But since I'm the sole supporter of my world now, I have to keep working, keep focusing on the future, even as I grieve. It's not easy, but people do it all the time. And I will as well.

While grieving and functioning at the same time are not easy tasks, the process has been and continues to be made somewhat easier by the outpouring of support from friends and family, colleagues and associates, both as near as next door and as far away as all over the world. Your notes, emails, comments here, letters, cards, gifts of food and offers of help, are so deeply appreciated by me, by my family. Thank you, dear friends, dear family, for your love and support. There aren't enough words to share all my appreciation. It's both humbling to have such wonderful friends and amazingly comforting.

The way forward from here isn't clear to me yet, but I'm working, and tending my health, being nurtured by kittens and trying to figure out how to keep body and soul together without my beloved soulmate Lowell. I may take a bit more of a hiatus here from the blog but I am working on bloominganswers.com as well as planning out projects for the coming months. I'll drop in to visit other gardeners when I have time & spirit, just as I drop in to visit friends when I have enough emotional strength to do so.

The days are getting longer, and some days there's a definite hint of winter's surrender in the air. Forward we go together, friends. There is strength in numbers.

Fare thee well, Love

 There was no warning on Monday, just a phone call from Kathleen, mother of Lowell's son Darren. The news was horrifying in its finality. Lowell, the love of my life for 13 1/2 years was dead, stricken by a massive coronary event.

My world has shifted. Everything has come awry, and there are many uncertainties, bills, and worries.
But there is also the knowledge of his great love for family, friends, life itself.

Today, we said goodbye to my soul mate, something I had not thought to do for another 25 years--if even then.

I'd like to share part of the service with you.

Prelude, read by our friend Ami McKay:

The fog's just lifting. Throw off your bow line, throw off your stern. You back out around the edge of the wharf, around the Shoe Bridge Rocks. Blow your airhorn and throw a wave to the younger generation of Huntleys, Steeles, Thorpes, Tuppers fishing off the wharf. Picking up steam as we roll past Clam Cove. Past Lady’s Cove where we used to play as kids even as our parents warned us to stay away from the water, watch the tides. Then the birds show up, black backs, herring gulls, cormorants and the occasional eagle, out looking for an opportunistic meal. The sun hits ya, you head west past Cape Split and the voice of the moon. .Open up to 12, steamin' now, wet exhaust thrumming the primeval beat.. The guys are busy, you're in charge. Ya know what? You're a lobster boat captain, fishing the waters of the upper bay of Fundy! Is there any thing better in the world?

Adapted from The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger