After an entire weekend of rain, we've finally gotten an insanely beautiful day. Deep blue October sky, golden sunshine, crisp temperature inviting a soft wool scarf: everything I could want from my favorite season. I should be outside, hiking around Beacon Hill with my camera, kicking through fallen leaves like a kid.

But I'm inside. My head hurts, my shoulders hurt, my soul hurts. It seems so wrong that the seasons should change without my sister.

Last weekend, we went back to the cemetery where my sister and grandfather are buried. My grandmother wanted to visit, so we all met at a cousin's house in New York for dinner on Saturday night, then went to the cemetery the next day. I felt mostly composed while we were there, but became increasingly gloomy as my parents drove me back to the train station to catch the Acela home to Boston.

I got cranky because I couldn't find a seat on the train. Everyone had done what I would have done: dumped their stuff on the extra seat so it looked occupied (even better: immediately put on walkman and stare out window).

I finally bumped into a conductor who figured I was being a prima donna and bitched at me ("There's plenty of seats. You might have to sit next to someone, arright?"). So I went past him, shoved the suitcase in a luggage rack, picked a pair of seats with stuff on them but no one IN them, claimed the window seat, and put my headphones on. Then I cried.

When the woman sitting there came back, she touched my arm and told me she'd been sitting there, then looked at me again -- my red eyes and tear-streaked face -- and hastily added, "But that's okay, really, that's fine," and sat down in the aisle seat.

Comedy = tragedy + time. She got off the train in New York anyway.

But seeing Elizabeth's grave did me no favors, and I've had a hard time shaking off the sadness since then. Grief is an odd beast.

I have reasons to be happy. Several weeks ago, I had some biopsies done to check on the worrying possibility of cervical cancer; last week, the labs came back with no indications of precancerous cells. I was so relieved that I laughed until I cried.

Then, right on the heels of that good news, I got more: the college I left in 1998, too ill to continue classes and four courses from graduation, has granted my petition to come back and finish up my degree. I expect to re-enter the college in January and graduate with my BS in Communications at the end of the summer. (What a long, strange trip it's been.)

And I'm going back to physical therapy and working out, and I'm meeting with a nutritionist to learn how to eat right, and I'm updating my passport for travel later this year, and my relationship with my family is getting stronger all the time, and good things are happening all around me. But some days are just hard.

So I retreat to the warmth of my sister's down comforter and Natalie Merchant's gentle voice:

And I am blessed and lucky. I was touched by something that will grow and bloom in me: I carry a piece of my sister's soul in my heart, and I'm going to make it shine.