Happy Thanksgiving! In the seven months since Alan’s passing, I have been incredibly blessed by friends, family, and acquaintances who have made this incredibly difficult process infinitely easier. Prayers are answered daily.

Pray for your friends and loved ones. you may not know what they need, but I guarantee you they need something, and the Lord will provide. I pray daily for the Lord to put the right people for what I need in my path — and I pray for the wisdom to recognize them.

The immediate things that must be done are essentially complete. Properties that need to be sold have been sold — to good buyers at fair prices. Money that needed to be distributed to the girls has been distributed. I can’t close out the estate until taxes have been done, but, of course, that can’t be done until after the first of the new year. The attorney has a few things he needs to do, but he won’t do them until six months have passed. I have a few niggling loose ends to tie up, but, essentially, the things that must be done have been completed.

Essentially, what were Alan’s things are now my things. I own four 1946 Mercury automobiles and their associated parts. I own a 1948 Ford F100 and its associated parts. I own a 1950 Jeep (well that one was always mine anyway, because I bought it), I own somewhere between 700 and a thousand barn lanterns and associated materials, and I own more than thirty musical instruments (I keep finding them) and four filing cabinets of sheet music. There’s more, but you get the idea. This is my stuff now, and I need to find new homes for most of it. I anticipate finding the right place for this stuff may take five years or so, but I hope to be able to accomplish this a little faster than that.

As another friend mentioned, each item we take care of in this process moves them a little further away from us. I do understand that the memories are there. I am grateful for our over thirty years together. Alan was a magnificent man, and we did a lot of good together. Barring something bizarre, we always knew he would lead the way from this world to the next. We were matter-of-fact about it and planned accordingly, discussing it regularly. The intellectual process doesn’t make the emotional one easier.