Prescience

I was searching old e-mails this morning looking for a wedding picture of my folks', who have a milestone anniversary coming up on Sunday.  I thought I'd sent it to someone, and I searched on "wedding."  Lots of e-mails came up, but one in particular caught my eye.  It was one of several I'd sent to a dear friend just a day after I found out A had died.  In the first response, he said this:  "But for some reason, call it my lack of faith in humankind, I can easily see them dismissing your role in the last several years of [A's] life. This is what worries me."  He was talking about A's family, who had said they wanted to meet me.  I assured him that they had been kind so far, but several volleys back and forth later, I was writing about how they excluded me from the funeral.

 

My friend had been right, and just reading about it is so hard, even 4 years later.  I don't know why I kept reading; the raw grief and the foreshadowing of what ultimately happened with his family...it made me feel sick to my stomach.  I'm kind of surprised that the e-mails I wrote were as coherent as they were; maybe that was the shock, because soon enough, I would feel like I'd lost my mind.  I lost so much.  I feel so bad for that woman who wrote those e-mails.  It's me, of course, but not.

 

In other news, I had a buddy at breakfast this morning.  Outside the dining room window, framed perfectly in the middle and sitting on a branch, was a hummingbird.  That first year after A died, I came to be able to count on having a hummingbird join me for nearly every meal I ate in there, sitting in much the same spot.  I knew it was from him.  But it hasn't happened in a long, long time.  So it was especially nice this morning; I've been missing him more than usual lately.  And I guess he knows.