I just remembered the giant TV

Dear Rick,

I just remembered the giant TV. We bought it at Best Buy after my parents said we could borrow their empty Discover card. You were flabbergasted that they would come down and offer it to us. They lived in the apartment a few doors down and they came to visit just to offer the card. They knew we wanted a TV (well, you and Brandon did).

We drove to Best Buy in the Tracker. You never considered having things delivered because 1. We were always broke and 2. You were strong and did it all yourself.

We had to remove the box to fit it in the Tracker. We even had to remove the vinyl top to even be able to fit the TV. We had to lower in through the bars down into the back seat.

IT WAS HEAVY.

Then we had to get it back out of the car at the apartment and get it into the living room.

That TV was moved from Best Buy to the apartment, from the apartment to Lester’s, when we decided to buy his house, from Lester’s to your mom’s for storage, when we decided not to buy the house and Brandon and I stayed with my dad in his apartment. I think we left it at your mom’s until we were ready for it in Maryland, then moved it there. Six years later, we moved it back to our new home in Garden City.

IT WAS HEAVY AS HELL.

Eventually, we took it to my dad’s apartment in Westland for him to use, since he only had smaller TVs and they were up north.

My dad died and we sold it (for very cheap – we wanted it gone!). You were so excited when the three men came for it were thrilled to death to get this giant TV. You always like it when we had a happy buyer for our stuff. You loved the idea of being generous and making someone happy.

About the author

Katherine Billings Palmer is a technical writer, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She’s won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Dearborn Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.”

In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

Her latest book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year was published in January 2019 and is also available on Amazon.com.

Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.

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