To move forward, I will step back a bit and repeat a Facebook post of mine, written late last year:

Focus is already shifting past this month’s holidays to the next.  Articles about the New Year abound.  Resolutions almost never work for me; however, 2017 fills me with dread, hope, pain and sanguinity.  I want the most wonderful man no longer of this world back in this world.  I want his love, touch, counsel, humor, kindness — I want it all.

The journey of grief is unique to everyone.  I work hard to “fake it ’til I make it” but that comes at a personal cost.  To act socially appropriate exhausts me, and thus, in turn, I need a large measure of solitude and silence.

I am making one 2017 resolution to stay longer in the present, and another to realize over how little I have any control.

In the here and now, my world has expanded.  My husband Rick’s family is warmly embracing; I am grateful for the love between his daughters and me.  Scattered cousins shower their affection.  Friends are kind and thoughtful.

Control?  Ha!  I am responsible for my decisions and behavior, but I cannot control how others respond.  There’s no controlling the future — all I can do is walk on, picking my way over and around life’s challenges.