And the 21st was the fifth anniversary of my daughter's death in the house fire. Tomorrow will be five years since we buried her. It's also my dad's 80th birthday.
I expected to feel gloomy and blue all day Friday. I did have a few blue moments, mostly from watching tv about the nightclub fire. That brought back some very painful memories of picking through the ashes to try to recover some article of Teresa's or Regan's that might be salvageable..nothing was. Everything was either burned, smoke-damaged, or ruined by the fireman's water hose.
I have found that by concentrating on the positive memories, the negative ones start to fade...eventually. The pain will always lurk under the surface, and sometimes at unexpected times will come shooting up from the depths of our souls, but I am learning how to anticipate these times and immediately turn my thoughts to positive ones. When I am alone, I sometimes let my feelings surface and have a good cry. But it never lasts more than a few seconds and it is over. I guess I must be healing. Its about time.