I am constantly amazed by how hard all this is.

My niece is entering her third year of medical school. Monday, she had to move from Boston to Springfield to begin her hospital rotations. She asked me for advice earlier in the spring about what kind of used cars she should look at since she would need one to get back and forth to the hospitals she would be working in when public transportation was not running. Jane’s car was sitting in the garage and it seemed silly to me that a perfectly good vehicle was sitting there getting absolutely no use, so I offered my niece the car.

After we finished moving her on Monday, she came back to the house with me so she could spend Tuesday dealing with the registry, the insurance company, and getting the car inspected and the oil changed. Finally, all that was done and it was time for her to go–and for me to get to my next meeting. I left her at the gas station and started up the hill. As I did, I looked back at the little white Saturn. My eyes filled with tears and I had to pull off the road for a few minutes to recover my self. Another part of Jane was leaving my life to live somewhere else.

“You’ve given it a good home,” the voice in my head told me. “It will be well-used and not lonely any more.”

And I know all that. It was the right decision–just as letting Jane’s body go was the right decision 17 months ago–and just as, eventually, emptying the closets and the drawers and sending her clothing to Goodwill and the Salvation Army will be the right decision when I can bring myself to face those tasks.

But none of it will be emotionally easy.  Part of me wants to do the “rip-off-the-Band-Aid” approach. But the wound remains greater than the Band-Aid metaphor can cover. There are stitches and staples and gauze bandage wraps still involved here. Another piece of the wound has healed. The car was the latest in the ongoing prosthetics I have been able to give up and move on from. Next is the empty space in the garage her car filled until yesterday. Or maybe it will prove to be something else.

All I know is, I keep trying to move forward every day. Every day, I try to take another step against the disease that killed her. Every day, I try to learn one more new thing. Every day, I try to help one more person. Every day, I try to do the work we might have done together.

I know that if I spent every day waiting for death, I would not be true to who we were or who I am. Together, we lived life every day–sucking the juice from every experience–no matter how good or bad or bitter or sweet. It were a profanation of all we were for me to stop doing that now.