Grief group reunion

I received an email the other day from Diana, one of the women from the grief group I did earlier in the year. She was trying to arrange a lunch but she was having trouble reaching the others because it appeared she had some incorrect email addresses. I passed along what I had, she reached Jan and Judy, and the four of us had a wonderful reunion at a restaurant near Golden Gate Park called Park Chow. Even though we all admitted that we are struggling with the upcoming holidays, we all looked happier than the last time we saw each other at the final session of the grief group.

Jan had been on a trip to Europe, mostly in and around London, but she also went to Spain and Majorca. Her traveling companion is her best friend Alex, a gay man she has known for years. She said they had a wonderful time. Alex kept teasing her that he was looking for "Miguel" so Jan decided she'd start looking for "Fernando" and it became a running joke with them. When we left the restaurant, Jan exclaimed, "Keep your eyes open for Fernando and let me know if you see him." That got a laugh out of all of us.

Diana had gone through her ankle surgery and moved to Novato, though she wishes now she hadn't moved that for north. Judy has kept herself busy working temp jobs, never knowing where she'll be on any given day, but she loves it. Her funniest story was about working at the Oracle convention that was just in San Francisco recently. As she said, "They paid me $12 an hour to greet people at the top of the stairs and point them in the direction of where they were heading. Not exactly college graduate work, but I did have a good time."

I told them about Mom passing away in September. None of them had been aware of that, though Judy had seen on my blog that I had mentioned that Mom was taking a turn for the worse; she had not seen the updated blog with the news of Mom's death. I told them of my struggles during the month and the difficult time I was having adjusting to the upcoming holidays without Dennis, the first time in over 31 years that he hasn't been with me.

But overall, the lunch was a success and we did have a very nice visit with each other.