Bittersweet

Met my friend at Wawa around ten after stopping at Public Works to leave some old boards from the garage and at Acme to buy a white rose.  We drove to the cemetery, then sat on the grass and talked, laughed, and cried, reminiscing about Pat.  My friend asked if it had been a good marriage and I said yes, most of the time.  Four years, four years, four years--is my memory of him still fresh or is it, ever so slightly, fading at the edges?
We stopped at Jay's grave, then I picked up my car and followed her to her house.  She changed and we went to her dental appointment in Manalapan.  Hit heavy rain on the way.  Back to her place after, where she changed again and we took off for the co-op, Holly Brook Farm, in Chesterfield.
Muddy!  Muddier than it was last time, in fact.  I helped a bit selecting and weighing veggies in the barn, but sat out--actually, stood out, as I didn't have a key--most of the time by the car and let her do most of the picking.  I'm not afraid of getting dirty, but I am afraid of slipping and falling.  Back at her place, she made a simple, but delectable, dinner of pecan-encrusted chicken and a salad of tomatoes, zucchini, onions, fresh basil (purple, which I had never seen before) and for good measure, a purple sweet pepper.  Drizzled with a little oil, it was superb.
It was almost 7:00 when I left--my friend was planning to run several miles after she cleaned up the kitchen!--and I was home by 8:00.  I had spoken to Betty and Aline earlier and got a number of condolences about Pat on Facebook.  It was a melancholy day, but not a bad one.  Bittersweet, I guess you could say.