Cats, Hats, Friends, Family

Cat: See the kitty? Medieval house cat. Eupen, Belgium.

Hat/Friend: Ursula sits pretty on her Maastricht balcony.

Friends: Sandra, Maurice and children Brit and Levi on their Maastricht terrace.

Family: Me and Irma, my sister-in-law, at Wok Restaurant, Maastricht, celebrating Geri's 78th birthday.

Family: Mother Geri, brother-in-law, Janus and Marcel, in the backyard of our little 'cabin' in Lanaken, Belgium. 

Friend: Jacques finds a weed 'torch' to blast his weeds in a garden center in Berg en Terblijt, a village just outside Maastricht.

Each day a new beginning. It remains a task to move through life without Martijn. I schedule many activities in order to rise from bed and move forth. The house is so lonely. We were so affectionate - every day embraces, snuggles and hugs. Our affection touched also many others - friends and family. They were aware of our intimacy. The lack of this pure affection is like missing air, food and water. I can intellectually reconstruct my life, but for this loss there is no ready compensation.

There are some stirrings on the work front and I'm beginning to be able to envision a future life. But I'm very much in the present - aware, painfully aware sometimes, of the passage of time. 

Luckily, Maastricht is verdant green with outstanding weather and and long, light evenings which makes everything more bearable. Directly outside my floor to ceiling walls of windows the resident blackbird family cheers me. Martijn told me he would return as a blackbird with an orange beak, and morning, noon and night, there is that sleek winged messenger, mouth packed full of still wriggling worms, giving me hope of the continuum of our fragile existence. 

As these smiling faces show, I continue to be blessed by the presence of angels who masquerade on earth as humans.