January has never been my favorite month. It’s cold, the holiday bills start rolling in, and worst of all, I can barely find a floor mat at the gym I didn’t want to go to in the first place.

“New Year’s resolutions,” I grumped to my daughter.

What’s wrong with those?” she asked, yoga mat in hand.

I’ve never been the jealous type. So I shocked myself the other day when I shrieked at the discovery that my late husband is now residing just inches away from another woman. The nearest other marker at this miles-long cemetery is yards away.

Somehow last spring, in the throes of fresh grief, I had missed this inevitable development on the cemetery map, where each lot is the size of half a Chiclet. Maybe I left my reading glasses at home. Maybe they wouldn’t have helped.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as quick as the next to rail against commercialism. “Hrumph!” I say to stores that open their doors at 6

I hear the best defense against dementia is to keep on learning . If that’s true, thank God for event-planning. After planning two this past month, I’m sure my children will never need to plant a microchip in my arm.

Until last month, I had only a passing acquaintance with the electrical fixtures and drain pipes at our house. I had changed bulbs and used a plunger.

But now I’m fully trained in the art of home repair, thanks to the only benefit I’ve found so far from widowhood: a free two-part course on plumbing and electrical repairs called “The Nuts and Bolts of Grief.”

When Pat’s husband Bob died unexpectedly last month, she lost not only a husband and editor but her best co-conspirator at finding the light side of life.

When a trip to the cell phone store sent her barreling down the SmartPhone highway, Pat could only hope that in the end, she would be as smart as her phone.