January 13th.  It is a "first" for my husband; it's his first birthday without his son.  It will be a quiet evening spent just with our granddaughter.  The birthday cake is sitting waiting to be put together, the presents are upstairs, hidden.  I know he won't talk about it but  it's going to be hard day for him.  Today is also a Thursday.  This one is the 46th since Michael's death, so it's a double-whammy day. 

Because we anticipate the first occasions spent without Michael we make it through them. I'm going to bet that this weekend will be harder for my husband than today.  We steel ourselves for the birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other significant dates, but we let our guard down once we are through them.

I started to write a number of times this week but struggled to find words to describe the journey without baring my soul and making the readers of this journal, uncomfortable.  And so I waited until a day when my feels are not so raw. 

One of the expressions used by a psychologist we see is to "keep out of harms way".  He means: stay out of or away from situations we know will cause us pain.  We do this in different ways but we both do it.
I have not returned to work yet and I stay home a lot.  Home has always been my comfort zone though so I do not see this as an avoidance technique.  I see it as doing what I have to do, right now, to continue to function.  Oh, I do go out everyday, if only for a few hours.  There are friends and acquaintances who I know understand.  There are no expectations of me in any way and part of the reason for that is most people have their own story, issues they are dealing with, perhaps keeping themselves out of harms way.

My home is where my son's ashes are and I feel very close to him here.  I don't know if a time will come when I am ready to let him go.  Maybe.  But not now.  Today I will sit with him by the fireplace, and burn his candle and talk to him. 

The other day I moved Michael's bookcase into the room he used here and I brought all his books back into the house from where they had been stored.  I love having those books here.  I run my hands over them and know that his hands have been there too.  I have used the last of one of the colognes Michael used.  So many times over the last 11 months I have walked into his closet and closed the doors so I could breathe in the scent of the cologne on his clothes and when the scent faded I resprayed.    And so, I am going to buy another bottle.  Wondering if this might be a bit of an irrational thing to do I did mention it to my psychologist.  She had one simple question:  does that scent give you peace?  That's what this is all about: finding peace.   We all find peace in our own ways.  Sometimes it reminds me of walking through one of the long dark tunnels near here without a flashlight.  In the dark it is easy to miss little bumps and hazards.  I am without an emotional flashlight so I'm bumping and feeling my way through this part of my life, with no knowledge of what comes next.  But as best I can, I am keeping myself out of harms way.