Jane and I used to joke about what a creature of habit I am. Every weekday morning we were home for 21 years I had a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of V8. Weekends we would go out for bagels. Her order always varied. Mine was nearly always the same–so much so that sometimes my bagels were already being toasted as we walked through the door.

When we were working, I made breakfast while she showered. I made sure she had something different every morning, but I had a rotation for every week. She eventually figured out that there was a reason I did everything the same every morning. The truth is that before I have been awake for a couple of hours my brain does not function very well. My habits evolved out of needing to remember to shave every morning and brush my teeth.

By 9 a.m. the fog had cleared from my brain and I could function as a somewhat normal human being. Before that, I could not be trusted to remember much of what was said to me.

I find it hard to go out for bagels on the weekend now. When my niece comes in to visit–or one of my brothers–I take them there. And sometimes I find that if I go there at an odd hour I can handle it–so I do. Eventually, I hope I will be able to go there more regularly. It will be a sign that I am making some progress.

Last night I went to see The Mourner’s Bench at Trinity Rep in Providence. The theater company commissioned the play for this year’s season so I knew little about it. But the title was clue enough that I was in for an emotional evening. Just a week ago I had seen another new play there–Love Alone–that dealt with the aftermath of a sudden and unexpected death. That play left me emotionally wrung out. But last night–last night, I was not sure when the curtain fell how I was going to get myself home. I had been fighting off tears from the start, but the third act killed me. I sat in the chair weeping as Anne Scurria recited so many of the same lines Jane had said to me the day before she went into the hospital.

When the lights came up, I could not move. It was as though the last act had been written for me. And as I reflect back on Love Alone —it seemed it, too, had been written to move me forward.

My weekend breakfast habit has become a poached egg on toast. It is a psychological comfort food for me. After I had come through an illness as a child, the first breakfast my mother would give us was a poached egg. Jane had seen a piece on how real chefs made them and insisted on trying it. Hers were more perfect than mine, but every time I make them I think of her–and I think of my mother–who died ten months before Jane.

I have wondered a lot lately whether or not I am doing the right things. I feel like everything is stalled and that what I am doing is not making any real difference. This morning I got an answer.

I scooped the egg out of the pan as I normally do–and as usual left part of the white behind. I scooped out that to add to the egg. The piece came out in the shape of a heart.

Thank you. I love you, too.