>>>>Tamar advised me to set aside an hour a day to grieve for him. She has given me lots of good advice but I passed on that one. I am grieving for him plenty already without going out of my way to do so.
>>>
>>>Actually that wasn't quite what I said. I mentioned that I'd found the Jewish tradition of going to a service to say the kaddish helpful, in that it gave me a place and time that I could focus on my grief. It made it easier to put it away at other times when I needed to get things done.
>>>
>>>But fwiw, it's more than 2.5 years since my mother died, and I still often walk into the house, look at the answering machine, and expect to find a message from her.
>>>
>>
>>I just double checked the email and you're right, you did not come right out and suggest I do that. You described the tradition and left me to draw my own conclusions.
>
>And apparently, you drew a different conclusion than I intended. All I meant to suggest was that giving yourself a time and space devoted to grief might help you manage it.
>

I certainly appreciated the suggestion, as I appreciate all your suggestions. (Appreciate is not always the same thing as enjoy <g>).

It's not an all the time thing. It comes and goes. For some reason yesterday it was rough. Today, not so bad. It helps that Emily is visiting again this week. It looks like the rest of the summer will follow the same pattern, with her being here from Monday until Thursday afternoon, i.e. when she isn't working in Wisconsin. She even has some swim lessons going again at the Round Lake pool where she worked the past three summers. Her Wisconsin job isn't bringing in as much money as she thought it would. Anyway, it's nice having her around, even though school will start up again before we know it.