I’ve come to think of my body as my emotional GPS.  In other words,  physical ailments are really my body’s way of saying ‘Hey, something’s emotionally out of whack.’ Like losing my voice when I am not saying what I feel. This week I had eye problems (AKA ‘not liking what you see’ according to Louise Hay’s brilliant book You Can Heal Your Life). On Monday I had a big pouch that looked like a mouse-sized bag of groceries under my right eye. On Tuesday it was a cascade of shopping bags.  On Wednesday it turned purply red and  looked like someone had punched me in the face (thanks to a herbal ointment I rubbed enthusiastically on it).  On Thursday I was ready to give up and go see the doctor. But I checked online first and found that a hot compress can sometimes relieve eye swelling. So I lounged on the couch for an hour with a face flannel (soaked in hot water) soothing my eye. It felt amazing and instantly the whole mess vanished. That simple! I’ve tried it again a couple of times just because it feels so nice. A sort of mini spa treatment.

So why the eye issue?  The tax people have me reviewing all the receipts for 2013, the year Laura was sick and dying. My kind-hearted accountant asked if it was too much emotionally to be doing this. Stoically I said No. I would be fine; not realizing it would take 3 weeks.  It’s not the medical bills that affect me.  It is finding the receipt for Laura and my’s last meal together, our last movie together and the receipt from that June day when we were told there was no hope and just dropped everything to go and sit in the garden at Pure Food and Wine. We sat for hours holding hands and dreaming big that we would find a cure and be together as planned until she was 109 and I was 102. Then we would die in bed together in each other’s arms.