Pretty Damn Terrific Don

Don has died. Holly is now faced with being a widow. This is something we don't know how to do. When you lose a limb, there are programs for learning to live without that part of your person, but nobody seems to have a system for learning to live without your life's love.

I joined a grief group to get some professional answers, but it's not like there are prosthetic devices for our hearts and souls. The holes in our hearts simply have to scar over as we limp along through life. Our memories and those shared with others do help in the healing, and they certainly provide a salve for the pain.

We were privileged to have several days to "sit Shiva" with Don before he crossed to the next stage of his life. If one's good works live on after we depart this life, there's a lot of Don left living. We are still collecting stories of all the lives he entered and enriched. He was really larger than life; I know there's a great deal of his positive power left in all of us.

No matter what was going on in Don's life, his constant reply when asked how he was doing was "pretty damn terrific." I've got to figure that if he was terrific even when eaten up with cancer, he's certainly even better in his perfect Paradise.

I don't know if he's resting in peace; I suspect he's throwing parties in Paradise.I do know that Don is now permanently pretty damn terific.