Well, it is 2015 and it still seems like Ted was here yesterday. I feel him around a lot, as I know many people do. About a month ago, an intuitive person–who didn’t know me or Ted—told me that he sends us “feathers,” and that she saw him flying with eagles. Also, that he said we can talk to him anytime we want—that if we calm our minds, we will be able to hear him. She added that he said I’m not listening to him enough! That was funny, because he always used to scold me for not listening to him. (I even wrote a poem last year about him telling me that.) I don’t know if the intuitive was accurate, but I do always think of Ted when I see birds---hawks, ravens, crows, eagles. I do have more feathers in my life than I used to. And I think it’s likely that he is still telling us stories, in the way only he can tell a story. All we have to do is listen:)

Looking at Ted's deck (click on photo to see it right side up!) on a beautiful day, thinking about how he would show me drawings of what it would look like & explain it in detail & shake his head that I still couldn't imagine it. I'd say, "Build it & just don't take out too many trees." We hauled a lot of bricks and wood across LA. Of all the beautiful decks and patios, fences and sheds he built for us, this one stands out--a work of art. He had to dig out the side of a hill, add an extension and plan two levels. I thought the spaces between the planks were too wide but Ted said I just had to find the right chairs. I told him they didn't exist but I was wrong. A few months after he left us, I found patio chairs with round bases at Big Lots. Then I found a firepit at a garage sale down the street. Now we use Ted's deck the way he always wanted us to. Tonight Lois, Rod & I will have a fire on the deck for Ted.

February. 2013

Thanks to Ted's friend Courtney
for posting this recently....

 

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

--Henry Scott Holland