contemplative and wistfulAnd, last year, Penny was exhausted and sick (we didn't yet know just HOW sick, and we'd gotten a false negative and thought that it wasn't cancer) so we stayed at home and watched a movie and snuggled.
This will be the first Christmas since 1979 that I haven't spent with her, at least for some significant part.
It's the first Christmas since 1976 that I didn't get her a gift. I'm going to the party because she told me to go, although I doubt that I'll stay for the whole thing - I just ... if it triggers, I'm out of there.
I've been fixing some dinner/lunch/whatevers for a friend from church - a different one this time, the wife of the man who was my third Stephen Ministry care receiver, a long-time survivor of Multiple Sclerosis who was finally unable to stay at home, because she had become too frail to care for him properly. I have been spared so much suffering and so much misery, in having this finish quickly.
I just made a batch of peanut brittle, and I'll be heading over to the store, to get some salads, and then to her place, and then to the Prouty party.
