It doesn't look right

They are redoing Barbara's store and apartment. Gigi said, "Come up and see the kitchen." It was hard looking at the changes where I'd eaten so many meals, drunk so many cups of tea, shared so many stories.

It is hard not to see Big Fat Ptah II sitting in the window, watching people and purring.

It's hard not sharing books.

As people, who knew and love her but use Argelès as a second home, come by for the first time, they too express their pain. I hear, "I can barely look at the store." There are tears.

It will be worse over Easter when some of her regular customers, whose emails we didn't know to tell them, come in and see the store empty or someone else in it. We will need to go through the story again and again and watch their new sorrow while there is still our old sorrow.

I've had a couple of months to get used to it, although I haven't succeeded. I can still pretend that she is really visiting her daughters in the States.The sign Heritage du Monde is gone. 

Making believe is getting harder and harder.