Postcards from a Dog

My neighbor in Belize died last night. Nothing sudden. He had been ill a year or so. He saw it coming and so did his wife.

Still.

His world has come to a grinding halt.

And so has hers to some degree. When she comes out at the other end of grieving, she will be a different person. Reassembled from pieces that was her before him, her with him and a new her.

There is so little one can do to help. It’s a lonely process.

But the good thing about the mind is that it mercifully blanks out the things you can’t handle or can barely handle. Later, looking back, there will be a fuzzy blank spot where the year is, that she still has to live. She will only have to live it once. It won’t be with her every waking moment the rest of her life.

I don’t know my neighbors well yet. But Paul seemed so full of stories to tell. Maybe Tricia can tell then to me. I’ll see. If it helps her to tell his life, I will be there to listen. If not, I won’t ask her to.