Stu's been gone just two months. This is an impossible sentence to believe. He died on November 26, the day before American Thanksgiving.

It's getting more difficult to deal with the reality, not easier. I know that will ease, but of course like any pain, knowing it will ease doesn't help very much. I do know a lot about physical pain, and knowing it will ease is a major help in coping. But this? Not so sure.

There is so much to do, so much to be done. Most of it is very very hard on me. There are some things that matter far less than you'd imagine; getting through "the holidays" was not a major deal as "the holidays" didn't mean anything to us. Going through Stu's clothes and grabbing every third shirt (some of which I bought for him, some of which are just...Stu security blankets) hasn't been awful. At one point, a friend in the building was collecting clothes for folks at the nearest tent city and I was thrilled, thrilled to give her sweaters and jackets and socks and even shoes that someone could wear in the bad weather. Stu would have liked it.This I know. Once he accepted that he had to let go of something.

But it's not fading and there is so much memory to cope with. I am not going to get all maudlin telling you exactly how diffcult it is. That comes way close to whining. I hate whining.

The one thing that has been a total, 100 percent pleasure has been the hours I have spent going through the boxes,, and files, and envelopes, and bags of Stu artwork. I know there is more to come, but right now I have an astonishing stack of artwork by Stu Shiffman. And it is utter joy. Every drawing, every cartoon, every illo brings appreciation and a smile. Appreciating the talent and the whimsey and the layers on layers and the not-necessary-to-get in-jokes (but if you do, it adds to the funny). Stu was drawing long before I met him - some of you have heard me talk about how I knew Stu before I met him from seeing his work in fanzines.

I sit for an hour or so with a stack, a file folder or two, and a bag for recycling. I see cartoons that I just adored when I saw them in 1980, and in 2010. I find drawings I have never seen before, entire fanzines I never saw. Sometimes I find copies and copies and copies of artwork because Stu always made too many copies of evreything. Sometimes he was messing with the reducing feature on the photocopier - a great tool for someone who drew on regular sized paper and knew his work would be shrunk down. And every so often there's a totally irrelevant piece of "how did that get in here?" for recycling.

I haven't gone through anywhere near the entire (ooh, I get to say it) oeuvre, but have spent hours making one huge pile to put back on the shelves for now, and one small stack of what I think of as more or less examples of Shiffman art. Different decades, different styles, different genres, different jokes. The point of this is to find a bunch of stuff that we can show people at the upcoming Potlatch convention and at the memorial a week after Potlatch. It won't be anything like complete, but I'm hoping (with Jerry and Suzle's help) that we'll be offering representative stuff at Potlatch and a wider range later to encompass all the fandoms and enthusiasms that Stu had in his very busy head. Oh, what joy. What fun to see, to remember, to giggle at what's going on in the background.

The rest is anguish. Wanting to tell Stu something this morning when I saw him later...remembering insane amounts of silliness, trivia, couple stuff that pops up at any time, usually at night. I have realized that I fucking hate weekends right now because they go on forever and I have no Stu to go hang out with. Second guessing every decision, every time I was late to see him, trying not to "should" myself to pieces. Yuck.

Then I try to neaten up a pile of paper and I find - huh - another file folder full of cartoons? Where did that come from? And who cares? Look at his toes! They're fuzzy! Look in the sky! There's a zeppelin flying by with a banner that reads "Eat At Joe's" or "Mpls in '73" (in-joke for the sf fans). Or the elegant line drawing done at the death of actor Jeremy Brett, one of the best portrayers of Sherlock Holmes. And I am at ease. I am happy. I can remember, for a while, without pain.