This is from a post I wrote on another blog on my birthday this past year, 9-1-08:

From the Compassionate Friends newsletter:SEASON OF MANY FEELINGS
Fall is a season of many feelings.
Autumn is here once again, as it comes every yearand with the leaves, my falling tears.
This time of year is the hardest of all.
My heart is still breaking, once again it is fall.
Memories once so vivid are seeming to fade;my time spent with you seems like another age.
This season reminds me of grief and of pain,but yet teaches of hope and of joy once again.
For the trees are still living beneath their gray bark,and you, my sweet child, are alive in my heart.
Written by Cinda Schake

****************I started my birthday yesterday by visiting the cemetery, leaving a nice fall bouquet at Paul's grave.it was a tough drive, I cried most of the way -- which I don't do every time I go out there.But every milestone brings up the emptiness and loss. Paul should have been bringing flowers to me...........

And today I was deeply touched by a gift from the mother of Paul's pancreas recipient. It is a Willow Treestatue of a mother and son. He comes about to her breastbone, has his hands in his pockets, leaning his head on her, and she has one hand on his head, one on his neck, holding him close.I cried, I love it. It says so much.Thank you, Susan!