Mom and Dad are suffering.  Quietly.  Since Sarah’s death, Mom whimpers and swallows a red-faced sob whenever Dad complains that his vision is blurry today or that he is weaker than ever today or when he calls her to help him hike his trousers (I spare her when I’m home).  Her anxiety is severe and pent up, seeping out in little choked up whimpers.  She buries herself in her needlepoint: brightly multi-colored tulips in a baby blue background: working it day and night.  Dad reported to me that his two weeks of nightly terror dreams had stopped harassing him for the last two nights—I had known nothing of his nightmares until he told me they had stopped.  He would not tell me what they were, though he remembers them in disturbing detail.  He has boasted for years that he has no idea what pills he takes because Mom sets them out and fills his pill boxes—and he just takes them.  And Mom confessed to me with a worried grin that she had slipped a melatonin tablet into his p.m. pills for the last two nights, no doubt contributing to his less fitful sleep.  And me, I’m just numb, and weary, and worried about many matters large and small, and I try to control what is within my control, and to release what is not, accompanied by my hope and faith and prayers, and labor, for good outcomes.  Whispering “yes” instead of screaming “no” as grace slowly seeps into the spaces of my shattered heart.  (See It’s OK that You’re Not OK, at p.106.)