I have been up since three...just couldn't sleep. Noah still has a bad tummy, he is losing weight. It must be some kind of bacteria. He doesn't want to go to the doctor and I don't blame him, I don't want to go either. It is creepy and sad and it seems they did nothing but make mistakes when they should have saved Stevie. I know he thinks the same thing.

I will give him one more day then we will have to brave the pediatrician with his stinky waiting room full of dripping and coughing kids. Please God let him be OK. I keep getting flash backs of Stevie at this age with tummy troubles...they should have known.

I went for a short walk in my socks and pajamas. I have not been outside this early in the morning in a very long time. It was so quiet and foggy. I love fog, I love to feel like a can truly touch and taste air. Have you ever tasted fog? No matter where you are it tastes the same sweet, cool and little like sulfer. There were no crows cawing, no traffic humming a all the windows in all the houses dark. I was the only one up and for a moment I couldn't tell if I was dreaming...I sorta wish I was.

I wrote, "Stevie is real" on my misty-dusty car window.

I walked up and down the block all alone pretending that I was the only one left on the planet.

I whispered, "Stevie are you here?"

Then a light on a timer went off across the street at the park. I know it is programmed to go off and back on again to save energy but I thought it was amazing that it went off at that exact moment. I beg for a sign, get one, then blow it off. I really don't want a sign, I want her. I want to know it is her, no doubts, no riddles. I want her to tell me "Yes, mom I am here"

I had a massage last night. A friend who does energy work rubbed my body with oil, kneaded my skin and soft muscles, placed her warm hands on my abdomen and said "your daughter is so present" Then she put her hands on my head and heart and for just a moment I believed her and thought I felt her in me and all around me, thought I heard "Mom I am here"

Why can't that be enough?

The woman who gave me the massage lost her sister at birth and her mother just a short time later. She was nine years old. Her mother did visit her when she was a child.

The tables are here and need to be painted but I can't get them into the house by myself, they are too heavy. No one is awake to help so I will have to wait for the sun to come up and for the sleeping to stir and rise, it would have been nice to paint them while everyone is sleeping.

Our Sunday mornings are so different now. They use to be noisy and chaotic. They use to be full of familiar sounds and smells. We would steal the Sunday paper from the school across the street, make a giant breakfast, stay in our pajamas a little longer, and try to find something to do together. On Sunday we always eat dinner at four and skipped lunch because our breakfast was so big.

Steve would usually work on the yard a small repairs, Noah would play out front with monster-boy Nicolas and Stevie and I would find a bookstore. Aly would go back to bed or take a long shower followed by much toe-nail painting, hair straightening and my-spacing.

Now Sunday is just Sunday. I have made a big breakfast or two but no one really has interest in it. Steve still works on things around the house, not that there is much to work on. We hired gardeners when Stevie was sick and they still come and do the things Steve would normally do. Noah still plays with Nicholas or plays tennis with Steve. We all kinda pick through day, making a sandwich or soup. Aly will get something to go from the pasta place, Noah will eat ten bowls of cereal. I will bake something I should not eat then give half of it to the neighbors so I don't keep eating it.

It is quiet.

How is it that Stevie's quiet presence made so much difference. How did one sweet girl leave such a big empty space?

Nothing is the same.

Is this how it is for everyone who loses someone they love?

I have an artist to see today, she is self taught and very organized. She paints when ever she can and has hired a Representative to take care of everything else. Smart girl. She has a good web-site and lot's of work. The work doesn't blow my mind but I love her conviction. She is creating what she wants and I am happy to step into her flow and be a part of making it happen.

My sweet friend Cinda is sending me some of her work for the gallery. I have two boxes trying to make their way to me and I am filled with silly anticipation. She is a collage artist and she has a brilliant sense of where things need to be. It is like she re-assembles how things should look or makes you think about the endless possibility of combinations. He packages smell like patchouli and it makes me smile. It is like having a little bit of her here when I open the box.

My life is good. I know that. I am grateful for each and every blessing, each and every friend and for all the love that finds me.

My life is also very sad so it is hard to remember that there is still so much good left.

I just lit a candle, I think I will use this quiet time waiting to meditate.

God,

Surround and protect me, carry me when it is too hard take one more step. Fill me with knowing again, don't let me forget how to believe. I need it to make sense, I need answers. Hope is just word now, a word that does not work. I need a new one.

Help me heal but don't let me forget.

Help me heal but don't let me forget.

Help me heal but don't let me forget.

I need to know she is still real....

God bless the people in my life who have always been her for me and the ones who have just found me. Fill their lives with the love they so generously offer me. Help me to see what it is I am here to do and help me to understand what it is that will happen when my work is done.

I need so much.

God bless this "thing" you created, this giant universe and all the universes, this planet, these people and all the living things that dwell with them. God bless the Sun, the moon, the oceans, the forests and all the plants that grow to nurture us.

The Mayans believe that 2012 is a time of great change. It is not that far away. If the veil is to thin let me be the first to reach through and touch what is on the other side.

I will do what you will have me do but I need you to walk with me down this long dark path until I can find the morning.