july 20

I’m having a hard time this week for some reason. I think it’s because I ordered the autopsy report from the justice of the peace. I’m conflicted over whether I should look at it, but I really just got it to show a friend who is an accident investigator. He does this sort of thing for a living, looking at mangled cars and mangled bodies and reconstructing what actually happened.

I don’t know if that’s it at all though. I’ve been feeling pretty melancholy for a while now. I didn’t post on July 16, but believe me I was fully aware all day long that July 16 marked an important milestone. Four months. Has it only been four months? It seems as though it’s been an eternity, as though I haven’t seen or talked to my little girl in years and years, but was it really only four months ago that she was walking around, talking and laughing, dancing? Was it only a bit more than four months ago the last time I talked to her, heard her voice?

It’s my friend Sarah’s birthday today. I really ought to go over and visit, give her a present, or at least call for goodness sake. I just don’t have the energy. I’ll muster it up somehow. Life musts go on, right? ha. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I met an interesting man the other day. He was like a little elf, all hunched over. 86 years old, or so he said, and so happy. He was laughing and talking about Seattle and the trees and how nice the weather is here. He was tattered and his clothes looked like perhaps he’d purchased them some time in his 20’s, and he told me he was on his way to an AA meeting. But, he was cheerful, upbeat. He made me smile and I still want to smile a bit when I think about our short meeting. It’s small things like that, meeting someone on the street, passing something beautiful like a garden or trees or statues… even a beautiful person. Small joys, small dollops of peace are what keep us rolling through this life in spite of all the bitterness and pain all around. We must reach out for the beauty or we’ll drown in the sorrow.