Seattle, Rottzilla, Anita, thank you all very much for the posts and the encouragement. You've got me a feeling a bit better this morning. My grandmother and my uncle and I watched the English Patient last night--if I'd known the main character was an OM and that the H tries to kill all 3 of them in a plane crash I probably would have selected a different movie. Oh well, it was a very good movie nonetheless, and I'm glad I finally got a chance to see it.
Before I left yesterday, I had done/left some things in the kitchen for W (I repaired the screen door handle, baked a batch of cornbread for her--she had shown me the recipe a few days ago, left a selection of birthday cards on the counter--for her nephew's coming birthday, and left a little magnet on the fridge. We're not the "fridge magnet" type--the only magnets we have on our fridge are the recycling dates and one w/ a little drawing of a girl farting (a not so short story I'll tell some other time), but this one was too irresistable. It had a hand drawn picture of a girl with rain on one side and sun and flowers on the other side. It said something like..."such was the power of the girl who was beautiful inside that wherever she went the rain stopped and flowers grew in her path."
Well, normally I would have expected at least a short phone call, but I never heard from her. I didn't want to call her on her cell and seem pressed to talk to her, so I just called the house later that night, but I got the VM. I left her a message letting her know that I arrived safely and asking if she tried the cornbread because I was curious if the recipe turned out all right.
So it's saturday morning now--I'm typing from a public library terminal here in the mountains--and I'm guessing I may not hear from her until I get back. I'm guessing I should just accept it, remember all the babysteps. I'm doing my best to follow everyone's advice and not analyze this, just keep busy and not have any expectations. So I guess my chant for the day is, "I will not think about W and OM, I will not think about W and OM,..."
