BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (II):

While others, no doubt, primp for a party or curl up by their fire ready to usher in 2010, David and I stop at the local grocery store and pick up a couple of frozen dinners. We get a bottle of wine and make our way back to Emily’s through the icy, quiet streets of the little town. We sit in her family room and listen to CBC on the radio and eat something from a box with not enough vegetables and way too much salt, as we plan our next attacks before the weekend is over and we are again forced to navigate the winter roads back across the province. (Atkinson, 2012)

The work is lonely. It involves sacrifices. If Emily had imagined, even for a moment, what we went though, she might have done things differently. What is left behind for an executor to manage oftentimes sends unintended messages.