The hardest thing ever

Do you know, if I was asked a couple of years ago what the hardest thing I would ever have to do would be, I would never even have thought of this? Meeting with the monumental stonemason to decide on what my father's headstone wouldn't even have been on the list, because I just somehow could never think of losing him so young. What, was this harder than his funeral? Yes indeed, I was numb then. Deciding with my mother on his headstone - it's just so final. It's real. Too real.

Yes, I know he was 77 years old, but he wasn't old, not at all. He was a fit, happy man who loved his life. He enjoyed his friends and family, his hobby of making model airplanes, and he adored my mother. He had a lot more living to do, if only he could have had the chance.

They say that time heals and the pain will lessen eventually, but I don't believe them. Not at all.