I know it sounds silly, but it didn't take long once Tal died that I began needing him to appear in some way. To make himself known. For comfort. More importantly, for reassurance. As much as we both understood what was coming for him and for us as the ALS progressed and as ready as we strived to be, his being gone was sudden and final and devastating.  And so, I longed ... longed for something. Where are you?, I would wonder. Are you still somewhere?

​Tal's favorite bird was the red tail hawk.  Early in our relationship I learned that watching the roadside and trees along a route was part of travel for Tal. He began pointing out hawks. I became good at spotting them.

​So, you know what I'm going to say, I presume.  One week to the day of Tal's death, I was headed to the mailbox. A commotion in the oak tree at the head of the drive and suddenly a Cooper's hawk followed closely by an irritated mocking bird erupted into view.  The mocking bird went off; the hawk lingered, circling over my head, ascending slowly until it caught an air current and sailed, its wings still and outstretched, until it was out of my sight. Oh, thank you.

​That was only the first sighting.  More days than not they appear, hawks most of them small, none of them red tails, swooping across my path, emitting a signature scream in the distance and staying put until my walk takes me near enough for me to spot it, a pair doing a tag team progression up the second fairway, perch to perch, making eye contact as I pass by.  Each and every one of them, of course, is spoken to and thanked and called Tal.

​Scientific? Not in the least. Theologically sound? Not likely. A balm to my battered spirit? Like none other.

​Hope I see you tomorrow, dearest.

Today is a special day. And, it's all because of the cute little three-year-old in the photograph.  She was born today in 1963, the fourth and last baby in my childhood family. My youngest sister.

I remember a lot about her impending arrival. How scandalized older relatives were at my mother's riding a bicycle during the pregnancy. Our mother's parents bringing a rocking chair for the new baby's room. I don't remember, however, the first time I ever saw her or the first time I held her. Isn't that odd? I was ten at the time and I'm the oldest, so perhaps I had become pretty good at integrating new little people into the household. But, still ...

My memories, though, became richer. In some ways she turned into my baby. I learned how to change and to feed her, when to put her down for a nap and when to recognize that she just wasn't ready to sleep. She brought my awkward self a pleasure I'd not expected. (She still does.) The addition of her made our family that much better.  (She still does that, too.)  Integrating her into the fabric of life in that household was easy.

To integrate: to put together parts or elements and combine them into a whole. We do it all the time, one way or another.  Susannah Conway, blogger, author, photographer, wrote this about the loss of someone she loved:

Oh, my, is that what I am doing?

With the birth of my beautiful little sister, my family integrated a new presence into its life.  With the death of my husband, with Tal's death, I am integrating his absence into my life.  It's helpful to me as this day comes to a close to think about my sister's arrival and the loss I have been carrying since September 17th, to think about them together. 

​Both entail reestablishing a sense of wholeness.

​It will come.

We hadn't been married more than a few years when Tal made an observation that unsettled me with its truth. "As long as we happen to know each other in this life, we'll never really know each other." Initially, I felt a little terrible, as though he were saying I'd not been paying very good attention (which, most likely, I'd not been). Over the years we returned to that idea again and again. I came to appreciate it, even embrace it.

We did know one another pretty well before we were parted by death. We had made telling our stories and conveying our thoughts a priority over the years of our marriage. But, those "infinite distances" continued to exist, and maybe even to grow, as Tal's illness progressed.

Truth be known, we were each of us locked in our own worlds. I was increasingly tired and scared. Tal was more and more quiet, part of that being a feature of the disease, but only part. He couldn't know the depth of my anticipatory grief. I could not possibly know the landscape of his inner world as ALS stole away, one by one, his physical abilities. He did not talk about what it felt like to be preparing for death.

​There was so much we simply couldn't know of the inner workings of each other's hearts. But, we were together nearly 24-hours a day. His care was my task and my joy. He never failed to say thank you. Side-by-side we faced the days and the nights, the questions and the answers we didn't want to acknowledge. Side-by-said we lived our long goodbye.

​In the end, though, we did what we had to do. Each of us. Alone.

​I shall always love Tal LeGrand, even -- maybe especially -- all that remains unknown.   

Today, two weeks ago, Tal greeted his last morning. The last one in 90 years, minus a mere 12 days. We had known each other some 28 years, four months. We had been married 26 years, 30 days. Mornings, my mornings, will never be the same. The keeping count somehow helps.
 
​Morning by morning I get up and greet not only the new light but an empty house. I walk the daily 10,000 steps, go through my exercise routine, make myself eat, tend the paperwork lapping at my little shore, convince myself to run essential errands. Morning by morning the world goes on. Morning by morning a bit of myself does, too -- goes on. But, I have to admit wondering what the point is. Since an absolutely essential part of my life is gone.

​But, morning by morning something invites me to be grateful for Tal, for the life we shared, for the grief his absence is visiting on me. I am strangely glad for the profound physical sadness that very nearly, and repeatedly, knocks me off my feet. The discomfort is meaningful. Remembering is dear.

​Morning by morning.  Morning by morning I am sad.