Tonight after class I headed to work by cutting through the university  libraries, avoiding the rain.  As I walked down the marble stairs at the graduate library my hand slid along the wooden railing.  It was smooth to the touch.  I thought about all the hundreds of hands that had slid down that railing before me.  It was a connection with the past, something we had talked about in the archival lecture I had just left.  It left a warm feeling.

I washed my hands when I got to work.  After all, hundreds of hands in flu season…well…lets just say the warm feelilng needed to be washed off.

So much of the focus of my life these past weeks have been on school and Dad, and not necessarily in that order.  Yet tonight, as I prepare Katie’s brown bag suitcase for her visit to the doggie hotel, and pack husband’s and my suitcases for our trip to Alabama I began to think more and more about Mom.  I spent some time tonight remembering the last time she was here, just prior to Christmas 2003.  She was helping me get ready for the big “King Christmas” when all of Bruce’s relatives come to dinner.  Who knew that was her last Christmas?  Or that she had only seven short months to live?

Thinking about that I sat still on the sofa.  “I miss you Mom” I whispered and tears slid down my face.  I guess it’s the combination of things, the holidays coming, the trip “home” to a place where no parents will be, sending out the invitations to this years “King Christmas.”  Too many memories, too many feelings all jumbled up inside.

Once again Katie came to the rescue.  She had been asleep at the other end of the sofa.  Hearing the soft whisper she came over, crawled into my lap and licked away the salt on my face.  Such a sensitive dog!  How she knows when I’m so sad I don’t know.  But she makes me smile.  When I’m not yelling at her to stop chewing something!

It’s going to be a long day today.  Group work this morning, and two shifts at the library this afternoon and evening.  On the up side however, I can feel this semester slipping away.  The grant has been turned in and I have only three more short 1 page papers to write for the class.  The last paper has been turned in to Government Documents, and I have only a presentation left to put together along with two team members.  My online searching class is finally finished other than a poster and presentation to do  with my group.  And archiving?  Well.  That still has a 15 page paper and a 10 page final exam.  But by the time I get to those I will have nothing left to worry about but archiving!

An interesting thing is happening as we are sending Dad’s friends our Truck Safety fundraising letter.  I’ve noticed a couple of times that people are having grief filled reactions when we talk to them about this issue.  It has surprised me, but on reflection it probably shouldn’t.

My siblings and I have dealt with Dad’s death pretty much every day for almost three years.  We’ve had lots of days to cry and feel sad, and it’s never far from our hearts and minds.  But the people we are contacting now, though they were terribly sad at time when Dad was killed, had pretty much gone back to their lives and haven’t processed the loss as much as we have.  Now when we bring it up, seemingly out of the blue, some people are reacting with tears that surprise them and us.  I think they are just beginning to realize their own loss. 

I find myself comforting them over the loss of my father.  That’s a strange place to be in.  But it’s Ok.

Today, they say, is the last warm day for the foreseeable future.  Since I don’t have to be in Ann Arbor till 2, I put the dog in her kennel and headed outside for some yardwork.  What a joy that is!  Mindless.  Aromatic.  Feeling muscles stretch.  Lovely.  I tossed out the hosta leaves and peony stems and frozen mushy tomato vines.  I rolled up the hoses and swept away the grime from the back walk.  There’s still things to do, but the worst of it is done.  And the worst wasn’t all that bad!

This evening during my walk from school to work I noticed an awful lot of the color pink.  Is this the new color of the season or something?  During my short three block walk I saw several pink sweaters, shirts, jackets, backpacks, bags and shoes.  I also saw a woman riding a pink bike with her pink hair streaming out behind her.  And finally a woman with a bright pink cast on her leg.

It was a pretty fall night filled with colorful leaves glowing in the setting sun.  The women in their pink atire glowed too.  Especially the pink bicycle rider who made me smile.

It’s after midnight and my grant proposal is done.  Well, almost done.  All the sections have been written and rewritten.  Charts have been added, budget numbers fudged and refudged.  It is good enough to turn in the way it is, but I will print it all out tomorrow and read it from paper.  Why is it that you can find more errors and inconsistencies when you’re reading from paper rather than trying to read it on a computer screen?  Plus, it IS after midnight.  And I don’t want to read 30+ pages again tonight.  And printing would wake up the dog who is sleeping upside down on her princess pillow near my chair.  Waking up the dog would be a bad idea.

So…I shake the kinks out of my neck and shoulders, try to clear my headache and the tiredness in my eyes.  I try to remember what is due for other classes and am grateful I stayed up till 2 a.m. (or later?) last week getting that other paper done that is due Wednesday.   A smart student would print that one up as well tomorrow and read it.  Maybe I will.

Tomorrow husband and I will attend a play in Detroit, “Twelve Angry Men” and then he is going into work.  I’ll look at all of this plus do the online search prep work when I get home.  I just might have things under control.  At least I’ll go to bed thinking that.  Ignorance is truly bliss.

Tuesday night as I was hanging out in the library lobby, waiting for my guest speaker to arrive I wandered by a display of poetry books.  I don’t generally read poetry, but as my speaker was a poet and I was just hanging around I thought I’d scan a few pages.  So I randomly picked a volume up and arbitrarily opened it. 

The poem was about the last moments of a family’s life as they were driving in a car, rounding a curve on a freeway while a truck carrying a load of oil was going up over the median wall coming toward them.  The poem was focused on what each member in the family was doing, all the while unsuspecting that these were their last moments.

What are the odds I would pick up a book of poetry at all, much less open it to this poem.  I read it.  Gasped. Put the book back, and turned around with a smile to shake the hand of my speaker as she came through the door. 

Bibliography:  Fanning, Robert, “One and a Half Miles Away from Dying.” The Seed Thieves, Marick Press, 2006. pg 11.

Yesterday was a very stressful day.  I started working at the library early, 9:00 a.m. and in the Youth department, then had class, three hours of a lecture with the professor speaking so fast you’d can’t let your guard down, then back to the library where I hosted a program, which lasted till 9:00 p.m.

During the class I realized that a very big project was due next week rather than at the end of the semester like I had convinced myself was true.  The beginnings of fear ran through me and distracted me from the lecture.  Back at the library hosting the program I had issues to attend to that were out of the ordinary; people protesting, in effect, the speaker and her views about the US military and the middle east.

Getting home at 11:00pm I sat in the car in my driveway, too tired to go inside and handle Katie the dog.  Once I forced myself inside I found on my answering machine a message from my brother that there was a glaring error in the fundraising letter I had mailed out the day before.

My response?  I went to bed.

Today I am near tears about everything, trying to convince myself I will get everything done (and in some cases redone).  I am thinking about my parents too much.  There is Christmas music on the radio which makes me cry.  I don’t understand why I am so emotional other than I am tired, and the holidays are upon us.  Or maybe it was just having such a bad day yesterday and it all sort of piled up on me.

Today I am working till 9 again.  I’m going to concentrate on one thing at a time and just get through it.  I keep reminding myself that it will all work out.

I’m just really sad.

Tonight I spent about 2 hours addressing envelopes, signing and folding and inserting the fundraising letter for Truck Safety.  I sent it to 48 of Dad’s friends and family.  My siblings are sending it to another 60 of his friends.  He had a lot of friends!  During the two hours I listened to the local and  national news but was pretty oblivious to everything. 

After I finished and put the last stamp on the last letter I glanced at the dog who was sleeping out in the foyer.  Then I realized that around my feet were almost all of her toys.  She had brought them, one by one trying to tempt me into play.  I hadn’t even noticed, and she had given up and gone to sleep.  Poor neglected puppy!

Speaking of puppies, there was a  story on the local news about a puppy burned in a house fire.  They were asking for donations to help with medical costs for her.  I don’t begrudge the puppy her medical care, and in fact I feel very badly for her, but I know that thousands of dollars will pour in for her.  It made me wish I had a cute fuzzy image for my cause, to help in fundraising.  Truck crashes  just aren’t that pretty!