FEW THINGS FEEL MORE HEALING than sitting on the old wooden porch of Isabel’s Espresso in Lopez Village and sipping a strong drip coffee with three Stevias and a dollop of half ‘n half — the diabetic widower’s special, I guess — on a blue-sky morning in May. It’s bloom time for the island’s wild hawthorne and dainty white bells of salal. I sniff a heady perfume of flowers and fir pollen on the lazy swirls of fresh air that haven’t worked quite hard enough to be a breeze.
Just sitting, doing something normal, and reading one of author Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak mysteries, set in the Alaska bush. Barbara’s not with me, yet she is, in my choice of reading. For years my wife tried to convince me I’d love this sassy Aleut detective, Kate, with a half-wolf dog named Mutt. Dumbly, I resisted, until last fall. Now I’m on Book 13. Two things I’m glad Barbara lived to witness: Trump’s humiliation and my Kate Shugak conversion.
It’s heartbreaking that Barbara’s not sharing in this simple pleasure, just sitting on a sunny deck, reading a good book and sipping a cup of something hot and reviving. But I milk a little enjoyment from knowing she’d have loved it, too.
Neighbor John, the Mad Birder, astutely summed up for me the paradoxical elements of grief. To paraphrase: You don’t honor your loved one by succumbing to a lifetime of emotional paralysis. Barbara wouldn’t wish that on me, and would hate to be the cause of it. Yet how can I stop thinking of her and loving her, and wouldn’t it be wrong to stop missing her?
It’s not simple. It’s not easy. It’s wrong that she isn’t with me, but somehow it’s right that I should find a small pleasure sipping my coffee on the old wooden deck while devouring a good book that Barbara turned me on to.
I love you, sweetie. With a tear in my eye, I love you.
Cantwell's Reef 
You never get over missing and loving someone. Every day you wake up you honor that person with your thoughts and memories.It’s very unfair when those we love pass before us. None of us live forever, but in the time we have left we honor and cherish those that have gone before us. You have been and always will be my friend.You will always be loved my friend.
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Next on your reading list, Brian – the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters; Barbara shared her copies with me the summer of 2001.
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Yes, Amelia was definitely one of Barbara’s go-to comfort reads, and I think inspired her longtime interest in seeing the pyramids of Egypt. I’ll have to look and see how many are on Barbara’s bookshelf. Probably the whole series. Thanks for the reminder, Ann.
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Pretty sure Barbara had the whole series (and pretty sure the books are all in series order!)
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