Once a widow client of mine said year four was the hardest. Just into year three I find I am struggling with an alone-ness that is visceral, the proverbial “lonely in a crowd” feeling that lives with me, now tugs at my heart, lurks in the recesses of my mind, conjures memories without warning. I’m dreaming often, of Bob, he on the periphery perhaps, or center stage but still obscure, a shadow person whom I long to grasp, to hold, to lean against, to breathe in. The dreams are not nightmares. But they are elusive, painful.