Just the right words

I  have been keeping family and friends apprised of my "Life After Frank" with emails now and again, as the days and weeks turn into months. Yesterday I wrote about the quick sale of the house and my intended relocation to a rental in Lubec. A very dear friend, 92-year-old Shura, provided just the right words in response.

Shura was Frank's former mother-in-law. I do not suppose she would mind if I make her words public here. When Frank knew he was dying, he reached out to her, even though he had not been in touch for more than 30 years. She (and Frank's ex-wife Jennifer) responded immediately, and those long-ago relationships were renewed and cherished both ways, for the last nine months of his life. Frank and I got to see Shura and Jennifer four or five times, during 2011. And I visited them in New York just last month as I drove back from Indiana, to see through the house sale.

Yesterday, Shura wrote me just the right words:

"Katherine- I am not astonished but deeply impressed at the way you are going about rebuilding your life. You are a doer. You are helping yourself immensely by recognizing the emotional dimensions, as well as the practical and future-oriented ones, in which you are engaged. We take our lives with us as we go forward on these difficult laps of the journey- and our self-awareness, as well as that of others, is a tremendously positive and helpful factor- both in the "healing" (which is another concept that takes thought and adaptation) and the planning processes. 

You are a DOER- and I'm filled with admiration. Love ya,baby! Shura"