Nearly a year

How can you say it gets "better"? You still remember the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. Maybe you no longer wake up in the middle of the night and have it all churning in your brain but it's still there. In a way, you want to hang on to it -- you don't want to forget any of it because it's all you have of her, memories. She "lives" in our memories.
I wish I hadn't so blithely accepted the cremation and dispersal of ashes because now I have no place close by to commune with her. She is far away on a distant shore, perhaps been swept out into the North Sea. Perhaps she's a silkie now. But I am here and how will I feel if I leave this place where there is only a relatively small connection to her? How will I feel when we downsize both houses where she lived and grew up? I must some day part with all the toys from her childhood, all the gifts and cards she's ever given me, the garments I knit and sewed for her. I have the memories.
Summer will always be a sad time. I remember how warm it was when she died. Remember walking the streets of London, doing errands, looking for things to cheer her up, trying to distract myself. Offering her fresh berries and other fruits, ice cream to tempt her. Trying to keep her cool, all the windows and doors open. Hanging the sheets and towels out that day in the sun and later taking them in thinking "She was alive this morning"

Birth-days

March 5th will be hard. I've already requested the day off. What will I do -- pull the covers over my head? Try to divert myself somehow? I don't know. Maybe I should make her a cake and dress in green and knit all day long.
She would have been 33 -- the same age I was when she was born. Some kind of cruel symmetry at work. Today there is a baby shower at work. I wish the young woman well -- but why couldn't E. have had the chance to fulfill that dream?
No, there will never be answers to the question "why?"
This is the year of the Tiger. Her oncologist said she was like a tiger -- full of fight. She fought until there was no more fight left.

We've gotten through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Did not "celebrate". Now it's the approach of March -- her birthday. Would have been 33.
Some things from last summer come back to me clearly but others are getting blurred. Mostly I feel guilty that I did not stay with her in May. I went home, thinking I would be back in a few weeks to help her through the next treatment. But there was no more treatment.
My cousin's teenage daughter is doing the Avon Walk in honor of E. Some people from work have contributed already. She had some kind of affinity for young girls, so good to be remembered by them.
Also the Guides are wanting to establish some kind of permanent memorial at one of their locations. It would be good to have another "place" for her.
Now, her brother needs to find his way. He has so much to offer but, understandably, has been wallowing in a great slough. He cried at Eddie Izzard, thinking of her. The best way to honor her is to live his own life to the fullest. Be the kind of person she would have wanted him to be.