AKA "The Writing Woman"
I just found the announcement we were going to post on Facebook in March 2017. I think we both felt that the time was never right:
Rick is pretty private when it comes to talking about personal issues on FB, but I have to announce something major. The truth is, after his sudden “sodium issues” last September, he was diagnosed … Read the blog
Pain menu
Which memory shall I select? What will bring on the tears?
You at the end? Hooked to monitors, breathing by machine?
You at the beginning? Our first date? Our first kiss?
Or the many options from the 21 years in between?
The memory selection is endless. The choices are triggered with little to no effort.
Choose one, name … Read the blog
You’re supposed to be in the next room.
It’s Friday, work at home day. We’re supposed to chatter back and forth all day, you in your office across the hall, me in mine.
But it’s silent.
I can’t hear your big fingers clacking away at the keyboard – the fastest hunt and peck typing I’ve ever heard.
I can’t hear … Read the blog
We did everything together.
I sit here mourning your death, and I think, who would understand this pain? We did everything together. Since you retired in 2011, you’d drive me to work in the morning, pick me up and take me to lunch, then pick me up and take me home.
On Fridays, I worked from my home office, and … Read the blog
The world talks of the solar eclipse. The day you died, pain eclipsed my world.
… Read the blog
Once you got the death sentence, you said there was nothing we could do about it.
But you didn’t die that Christmas, and you didn’t die that spring.
And we got Christmas with the family.
And we got spring in Florida.
And – in between hospital visits – we got summer at home.
We got time with friends.
We got … Read the blog
This is our house.
You planted these ficas in the front yard. You built these wooden pillars to cover the old colonial ones. You carried this bench to the front porch – the one that we brought from our home in Maryland. You cut this grass. You put in the new front door, and put up the new accent lights … Read the blog
You thought you couldn’t live without your Aunt Pat
You thought you couldn’t live without your mom
You thought you couldn’t live without your dad
And now Rick
It gets harder and harder as people leave you. Your special support system. Those who loved you like no other person ever did.
And I type this on the Chromebook you made … Read the blog
Twenty years. We missed each other for a few, early on, when we lived apart. Why did we waste that time?
I sit here alone in the living room, wishing you were next to me. I dread going to bed, the empty bed.
What a journey we’ve had. You’ve taken me to incredible heights and depths. It was a crazy … Read the blog
I never finished writing this journal entry, but it was interesting coming across it several months after Rick died. I didn’t have much time to write, but I’m glad I had this one short entry because it reminds me of how early on the reality of his impending death really started to sink in.
January 1, 2017
It’s hitting me … Read the blog