Countdown

 It's almost here - the time that all the timelines I've been living for the last month or so converge onto that moment of March 30 when Bob quit breathing.

I can relax now.  I give myself these days.  March 27 was the last day that we were going ahead, doing everything, hoping that something would happen.  On March 28, he sat up and yelled "It's over.  Let it be over."  He would have gone on morphine that night, but I begged him to give me one more day - one day for both of us to think it over, to not do this impulsively, to realize that this was the ultimate permanent decision.  On the 29th we said goodbye and they started the morphine drip, and on the 30th he quit breathing.

I have found, over the 6 years now, that I can deal with anything, as long as I know that I'll have these two days to fully mourn.  I don't know what I'll do - maybe continue to sort and wash that mountain of alpaca.  Maybe mostly sleep.  Or read.  It doesn't matter.  I have wine and rum and carrot cake.  As long as the cats and chickens and squirrels get fed, I don't push myself to do anything else.  In the past, I've sometimes even covered up the clocks.  I just simply quit and rest for a couple of days.  I mourn the 6 years that I should have had with him, and feel gratitude for the 48 years that he gave me.