I missed your post, daylia, thanks for checking in. Thanks for the hugs from the "future", Helen!

It's a bittersweet time, I miss my beloved so keenly, but I just had a blessing in the form of my dear friend and neighbor who has been in Arizona since August to be with her new grandson; she came home early and stopped to see me before anyone else. The night Byron died, when the EMT asked who to call to meet me at the hospital, she was the first one I thought of, even though she was 3000 miles away (so he called 2 other dear friends).
I've had a healing visit and can now face the candlelight service for the first year without my beloved. I don't promise not to cry, though.

Allison