This post has been forming itself, crocheting itself in tiny stitches in my mind, ever since I walked through the door of the TinyTrainHouse.
I've been reluctant to write it... because I know, psychologically, that what I'm doing here is called 'meaning making'. Taking something as torrid and awful as the death of someone you love, and trying to put some form of purpose around it, some kind of framework for it to fit in beyond a group of atoms and cells that grow, and live, and die, and decay.
But knowing that... does it change it? Not at all. You can know exactly how something works... and there can still be magic in it.
***
Because does it feel like Tony sent us here, to this house; that he sent this house to us? Of course it does.
How could it not? When it's just the type of house we always discussed buying for ourselves, in a few years time... taking our Purple Life with us?
When it's got everything I always said I wanted in a house- floorboards, a dishwasher, built in 'robes, a ceiling fan, a Hills Hoist clothesline...
And a garden full of flowers, for his daughter and his wife. The flowers we didn't have at our wedding, cost and time prohibiting, and he always promised he'd give me.
And then there's the steam trains... the Chop's favorite thing on the planet. We did steam trains, in our Purple Life. Trains even has it's own label on my blog.
And every Sunday, here in TinyTrainTown, the view from our front window is this...
I know... a string of small coincidences, that might mean nothing at all. And after losing the dog, my faith in the whole idea was sorely shaken. But, as I mentioned In The Powder Room, my mum and her philosophising helped a good deal (as the philosophy of mothers often does).... that maybe Scarlette stayed as long as she could, until she knew we were safe... and then headed back to her master.
That helps enough, fits enough, to fit in with the scheme of things... we've found a perfect little family home for the little family that is the three of us, at a price that suited perfectly too.
It sounds melodramatic and over the top.... but 'heaven sent' seem to be just the right words to use.