For someone who doesn’t work Monday though Friday, I sure am glad to see a weekend here. I won’t lie to you: it’s been a heavy week. It began on Sunday with what should have been Lauren’s 28th birthday. For Rob, she’ll always be 24, as he can’t bear to contemplate what should have – could have – been.
 
As for me, I look at where I was at 28 (pregnant with her) and wonder if she’d be expecting another child by now. I wonder if she’d still even have her job, with cuts being as rampant as they are at the Ottawa radio station at which she did midday news. Few people she worked with are still there; a couple of sweet young men came to see me when I was in the building in late February for TV interviews. They remembered her and wanted to wish Rob and me the best. Maybe she’d have moved to television, although she never had that “bug.” Who knows…?
 
It’s rare weeks like this one – perhaps a deeper reverberation of the silence that follows a frenetic, fantastic whirlwind book tour and joyous time at the top of the bestsellers’ list – that make me feel a bit of a hypocrite. It’s why I’m always trying to stay positive here, without lying to you. You don’t come here to be brought down or depressed; I try to find different ways to look at things or stories to share that will make you think or feel. The last thing I want is for this to be about “poor me.”
 
After all, part of the title of my book is “…love, loss and reclaiming joy.” I know you can do that – and we strive to do it every single day. How I wish the joy was all-encompassing and never-ending, but you’d have to admit there would be something seriously wrong with me (or right with my meds!) if I didn’t slip into the crevices – or craters – that accompany the kind of loss that we’ve experienced. Add to it losing our cousin’s family this week – the sweet hugs and laughter and screams of little people playing with us – and it’s been, as I say, a heavy one.
 
I’ll be out of it by Monday and will work this weekend on pulling through. Moving forward. Counting blessings and saying our own “at leasts.” I’ve lots of writing to do while the Blue Jays play on TV: I’ll be preparing Walmart stories (which I hope you’re enjoying) and doing lots of advance work on journals that I want to make sure are up for you when we’re in Amsterdam in just over a week.
 
I am excited to tell you that there are now more than a few book dates that are being lined up for the first week of June: I’m coming to Southern Ontario for events big and small and definitely in areas that weren’t on the agenda in late February (not that Mother Nature would have cooperated anyway). So I’ll keep you posted on that front and hope that if we missed each other last month, we’ll have a chance to chat or hug (or both) in two months.
 
In addition to the travels we have ahead, it is truly something I’ll be looking forward to. And as anyone who’s suffered a loss will tell you, having something to anticipate on the horizon can mean the difference between the light and the dark.
 
In the meantime, thank you for being here. I wish you a peaceful weekend filled with light and I promise I’ll do my best to have the same. All we can do is try, right?