…. like this picture of Jim …. no longer make me cry.
Well, the majority of the time.
There are always “one of those days/weeks”, but they are few and far between now.
Mostly.

This realization occurred to me this past weekend.  I was looking for a tote bag to use for my swim suit and towel and various other Fourth of July sundries.  I happened to choose the first one I saw.
It was a bag that Jim purchased on our last vacation.
The vacation we took with the boys to Alaska.
Not knowing, of course, that it would be …. our last.

 So, I grabbed the tote, threw my stuff into it … and then felt something in the inside pocket.  I wondered what could be in there and when I had last used it as I unzipped the pocket and looked inside.

 And I discovered that I had not been the last one to use that tote. 

I pulled out the items that Jim had left in the pocket and stared at them for a moment. A highlighter, a couple of paper clips, a pen and some small stick-it notes that are used to note something on a page.

 Just a few things …. things that would mean nothing to most people.

But I knew that Jim used to take reading materials with him almost everywhere we went. He could usually be found sitting somewhere (even on a beach) with a stack of papers in one hand, a highlighter in the other, and a pen clenched in his teeth as he marked sections on a page.

And the picture of him doing just that entered my mind as I stared at those objects.

 And I smiled.

 It was shortly after that when I realized ….. the things that used to have the power to make me cry, to bring forth gut-wrenching pain and huge sobs of grief …..

 …. now have the power to make me smile.