wow, been a month since I wrote?  I was off work for a couple weeks & did some writing then.  now it's back to the grind.Joe's birthday was july 18. Last Wednesday. We had gone to the cemetery Sunday before & cleaned it all up, put in new fake flowers, raked the grass, cleaned the vase out.  So on Wednesday, we planned to go after work but never got there. Now it's Sunday & we'll be going over there tomorrow. The day my son was born came & went.  The Wednesday before, we went to Compassionate Friends.  I had Joe's picture & candle ready, but left the picture, arrived only with the candle. I lit it & put it on the special table.  We broke up into 3 groups & this is the first time it was kind of segregated, no men in our group. It's funny how some of us seemed more open without the men there. But I talked about Joe and cried, I just miss him so much, and when I think of how he must have felt when he died, & months before, it's just so sad that he couldn't come to us, or at least me. It's hard to write this.  The tears are coming. Most of the time, I can handle it now, thanks to the meds that make me numb. So it's numb (with meds), or being practically disabled by grief (without).I remember the day Joe was born.  I already had 2 girls and had wanted to have a boy. But in the delivery room, all I could think about was please God, make the baby healthy.  In those days, we couldn't find out the sex of the baby beforehand. so the doc says, it's a boy, and I was in disbelief. We had the 2 cutest daughters and it really didn't matter anymore, but this big wave of joy washed over me, & my husband was in there, and he just had the biggest grin on his face.  Later he brought me chocolates & a flower.  We sure loved that boy.