It's a rough week: Six months ago today Ken died. Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, we interred his ashes along with his brother's--at least the urn that we had, which is only part of his remains.
The thing about interring the ashes on Ash Wednesday--an appropriate day, we thought, is the impact it had on me when at church that evening the priest marked my forehead with ashes saying, "Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you will return." It was more meaningful than ever before. We had just been there and done that. Our children were dust and have now returned to dust. Just like the rest of us, eventually.
Furthermore: February 8th, Ken would have turned 54, February 16th would have been his brother, Frank's, 56th birthday, and on the 17th their dad, my husband will turn 80. And, today, Valentine's Day (something we've never celebrated) was my husband's mother's birthday. And the list goes on. All the memories, happy and so very sad, all piled up in the shortest month of the year. My dad's birthday on the 20th, and so on. Just name it "Roller-Coaster Month". But not a lot of fun.
