Tom Sonday

Hello faithful readers.

Please recall the post of about a month ago, where I shared that we’d lost three hives. 

That’s the bad news.  But, the good news is — there’s honey available!  Daughter Gigantor helped me extract and bottle, and even though we saved over half of those beautifully filled honeycombs as a “welcome to your new hive” gift for the newbies (new bees?) that will be arriving in April, we still have several dozen containers available.

My daughters and I have been busy working on a new charitable foundation website, from which it’ll be easier to obtain honey and make donations to Tom’s favorite charities.  But, it isn’t done yet.  (I must’ve gotten distracted by extracting and the activities that inevitably follow extraction — cleaning honey off of every door knob, railing, light switch and handle.  It happens no matter how careful I try to be, but in looking for the blessings in it — finding the cat is easier when he’s stuck to the window ledge.  (The cat was never really stuck to the window ledge, he was just a little sticky and will use any excuse to lounge for hours in the same location.))

If you’d like to obtain some honey in exchange for a donation to Meals on Wheels or Loaves & Fishes, contact me via a comment here or primahub at aol, and I’ll tell you how it works currently.  (I’ll post here when the new site is up.)

Last fall Jim, from Illinois, had obtained some honey, and asked me to let him know when more was available.  I emailed him this afternoon, and was delighted to see his request for several more bottles tonight.   A smile broke across my face, and I turned to my honey after reading the email to tell him that his honey was beeloved by others … and then reality set in.  Tom’s laptop is still sitting next to mine, but his chair is empty.  Sigh.

But, I’m happy to say that the realization that he’s gone didn’t floor me.  Progress in dealing with this?

And I’m happy to say that I felt, well, happy!  I know that somehow Tommy knows this honey-for-charity thing is working and is pleased.  Not only will it help feed hungry folks, but the words of encouragement that Jim sent fed my soul also, and so maybe Tom’s making me take over his bees was his way of ensuring that I find people who keep me going in this sometimes-struggle to define my new life.  I’m not in this alone, although sometimes on a dark, snowy night with an empty chair beside me it feels that way.

Perhaps I should put some honey on the chair and stick the cat there …

This entry was posted on February 23, 2010 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.