I’ve been thinking about joy recently… the little things that bring that lovely feeling of what a great time this is… what a special moment… what a wonderful life I live…

even upside down it looks lovely…

I started this post last night, after getting home from a great holiday celebration with my colleagues…  there had been lots of prep – meetings, running around, arranging and rearranging, lots of fun setting up, and then the actual event where everything came together, thanks to some great folks…

I decided to have my daughter Crystal come and act as wait staff, so that we could be present at the party and not just work it…  she did a great job, and took a huge load off our shoulders…

the joy for me was twofold…  a special event went very well, and I got to enjoy seeing her in action…  she is an amazing young woman, with a husband and three very active boys…  there are very few minutes when she gets to focus on one thing…  she did simple things – pour drinks, remove dishes, bring out coffee, maintain the food area, but she did it with a wonderful grace and hospitality… it also made me realize how much like her father she has become… I was a proud momma…

through another Norfolk Pine decorated for the occasion…

I think of the joy my beloved brought to me for more that 41 years and celebrate those events in my life…  it felt a bit odd to be at a party without him, but I also felt that he was there with me in spirit, and know how proud he would have been with the wonderful host that Crystal has become…

tiny flakes of snow were falling earlier today as I sat at my laptop looking out across the creek… I spent time this morning finishing up decorating the tree…  it has many more purple and silver ornaments on it now…

it also has a purple star from my Advent Calendar and a gorgeous silver dragonfly which arrived in the mail yesterday from Cyndi…  she purchased four of them and sent one to me, one to Crystal, one to Ron and kept one for herself…  she thought we could each have one so that we would remember the others and “be together” over the holidays…

I was surprised when it arrived, and she was surprised too, because she had only mailed it at 3:30 pm the day before I received it…

I think of the surprise of discovering how much I am cared for by my colleagues…  following George’s death their subsequent outpouring of thoughtfulness and kindness was a wonderful surprise for me…  you know you have good colleagues, but their great gentleness to and for me was a reminder of what caring people are out there…

after working the late shift tonight I spent some quality time with a wonderful woman and had lots of fun in the process…  the final surprise of the day was how late it was, as the time had flown by…

I was chatting with someone today about being persistent, and it brought to mind the process that I had to endure with the credit card companies to get the insurance that we had been paying for on our credit cards for a number of years…

the point of the insurance is that if something happens – injury, job loss, death, they will pay off what is owing on your credit card…  for every card we had, I had to advise them of George’s death, and they would send me – usually by Canada Post – complicated forms to complete…  much of the information I was able to provide, but portions had to be completed by the doctor, and one even needed the Coronor’s input…  after our doctor had completed these forms and charged for that service, I discovered that the Medical Examiner’s Office could also have completed and signed the forms, at no charge…

but back to the credit card insurance companies…  after all the documentation was sent to them – much of it having to be notarized, they would send another document to be completed…  

it felt as though they were trying to make the whole process so complicated and time consuming that a person wouldn’t bother to jump through all the hoops…

I must say that the life insurance companies were much easier to deal with… they sent the documents, often by email if requested, and they were very simple to fill in and return…

filling out all the forms was fairly stressful but I found that I could contact real people, particularly the life insurance companies, who would assist with completion of the forms…

at some point in the process I discovered that the credit card insurance people don’t actually talk to the credit card people, so then I had to call the credit card people to advise of George’s death…  at that point some advised that I could no longer use the card…

it seems like that process all took places years ago, but it is only – already? – nine months today since George’s death…

I spent some time tonight digging out ornaments and decorations and starting to get the tree ready… this year I have a small, live, Norfolk Pine… usually George would set up the tree, put on the lights, and after I had decorated it, he would hang silver tinsel on it, one piece at a time…  if I was helping I would toss handfuls at the tree… what fun we had…

after a long wait, a poppy opening…

it was difficult at work today…  first item on the agenda was to review 2012 to find when I had done work on a particular project…  I was astonished at how difficult it was to look at some dates on the calendar – the day when George died, the day I returned to work, the day I was told, by phone, that I had cancer… the day I realized it had been a month, two, six, since his death…

lots of waiting involved… waiting to hear from insurance companies, waiting to hear from CPP, waiting to hear from credit card companies, waiting to hear from doctors, waiting to hear about surgery, waiting to hear results of the pathology, waiting…

I continue to try to be in the moment as the waiting continues…  tomorrow would have been George’s 64th birthday and I am waiting to see how we get through the day…  currently the plans are to meet in the evening and share some apple pie (his favourite), stories of fun times together, and likely a few tears…

On Wednesday, it will be 9 months since he died…  I don’t always remember ahead of time, but usually sometime during the day on the 5th I will realize what has happened and take a moment to remember what a wonderful life we had…

this is going to be a long week…