I’ve actually avoided writing directly about Mark lately. I’ve avoided thinking too hard about Mark, because it inevitably leads to tears (yes, sometimes smiles, perhaps a giggle at a memory, but the tears are often more predominant). The magnitude of our loss still eludes me at times, like a wisp of smoke I cannot quite grasp. Perhaps that is a good thing. To grab it and hold it – to see all the implications at once, all the ways we will mourn – would not be like grabbing smoke; rather, more like grabbing a live power line.

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After the twists and turns that brought me here to Sanibel, and then the lift of Sunday, I arrived at Monday in a totally different place, mentally and emotionally.

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I have returned to Sanibel. Getting here was not an easy journey.

First: I was not 100% sure I wanted or needed (like soul-deep needing, the way I felt last year) to come here. I worried it would not be the same, that the power and restoration of that time could not happen again (and I know myself pretty well; I’m not the type to buy season passes to anything because much of my joy is in the new, in the adventure).

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