My last post was about missed days. This post is about a missed month, a month lost to illness. This blog is about a missed year. I don’t think it is possible to catch up with a missing month or a missing year but it is possible to find a place again.

We have spent the better part of this year after the fire trying to find a place again. The anniversary of the fire is just two weeks away and we feel the mounting pressure of an anniversary of an extremely stressful event. The past few weeks we mark things by “almost a year.” We had a friend visit who listened to us and who compassionately asked questions and it was all fresh again. I had almost stopped crying and there I was again, crying. Anniversary times are hard.

Yet, the crying is OK. We both feel the way our lives are changing and most of the times we are excited about the changes that are happening. Sometimes though, when we least expect it, the sorrow of the past year pops up and overshadows the excitement we have as we build this new life of ours.

Even that is not so sorrowful as it could have been. Together we recognize it. We can share the shadow and in doing so make the darkness recede. This is one of the best things of this past year, that we can share more since we have this huge shared experience of the fire.

This missing month has been consumed by my illness. I have lost time. It is interesting that time filled with the fire is overfilled and the time filled with the illness is missing. Both hurt. Both have pain that can be redeemed, pain that can be replaced by learning. The pain will never go away nor should it. The pain can stay peacefully when it is understood.