Happy New Year T,

We live so close to Tara and Scott but there was no way I could return to our place last night without you and Tara was thoughtful enough to offer me a sleep-over before I had a chance to think about it.  How’s that for a friend?

I’m sure you aren’t surprised to hear how great both of them have been when it comes to supporting me with their friendship.   It was a great morning just sitting around with them  talking, drinking coffee while Tara, with Scott’s approval created their annual New Year’s Day dish for the full family.  Seemed too spicy for me first thing in the morning, but I’ll bet that by late afternoon the family  is going crazy with it.  Tara, thumbs up?

Dressed and out in a cold, dreary morning I rode on deserted streets hoping  to fill up a wagon at Harold’s with food treats for my dad.  Please, be open guys!  Prayers answered.  Lots of delicacies: stuffed cabbage, hearty chicken soups, corned beef, sweet noodle pudding,  beef stew, chicken and beef pot pies  are now chilling in my freezer ready for tomorrow’s delivery.

I also stopped by the house on my way back to Rockland  to grab a few things I still left behind.  It was hard to be there without you.  It’s really emptied of life now–so hard to say goodbye to our life together in Paramus, our life together everywhere.

But I know this would not be a day for me to hunker down and work on my video project. With just enough time to transfer the food and household items I was back on the road for a movie at the Burns just across the Tappan Zee.   Yes, I’m back at our familiar spots on my side of our lives.

I’ve been impatiently waiting for 45 Hours and it opened today at noon and I was there of it. Nope, I wasn’t alone.  There was  lots of activity at the Burns on New Year’s Day.

What a film!  I was so missing you next to me to catch a reaction,a whispered comment in the darkness.

As an older couple is getting ready to celebrate their 45th year together,  the husband gets a strange letter that his first love who had died 50 years earlier on a climbing trip was finally found  on a mountain in Switzerland and he wonders if he should travel to see her. Now that the conflict is established the couple must absorb this news.

Here’s how the director talks about his work:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/movies/andrew-haigh-narrates-a-scene-from-45-years.html?_r=0

Of course I’m thinking about us, how we came together after full lives with others, especially you- coming to me after a long marriage and two grown sons.  Timing for us was everything.  Some might think that with a gap of 25 years our timing was  off, but I never believed that. Unlike the movie husband, I think  you took the time, a lot of time to mourn Lydia and when we met,  you were ready for another shared life experience.

Thank you so much,

Missed you today on January 1, 2016,

Bonnie S.