Sunday afternoons used to be my favorite time of the week. Sunday afternoons on a chilly, gloomy fall day (as much as I HATE the approaching winter) were even better. Right about now, Rick would be ready for a nap. He would’ve just wrapped up some work on the website for one of our clients after a breakfast we shared at our favorite diner – him reading the New York Times on his iPad and me working diligently on the puzzle sitting across from him in our regular booth.
We would’ve run an errand or two after breakfast – probably had to pick up something at the local Home Depot for some home-improvement project. Then we would’ve returned home, each of us retreating to our individual offices across the hall from each other to work on some unfinished business or bills, or just to fool around a little bit online.
And then I’d hear the yawning and the stretching and the groaning coming from his office and I’d hear him rise from his chair. I’d feel him coming towards me to lean over and see what I was doing on my monitor, hug me from behind and kiss the top of my head. And he’d announce that it was time for his nap…
And I would continue to work a little longer on whatever it was I needed to finish. Well, I would try, but I couldn’t resist the urge to join him, whether I was tired, or not. So within a couple of minutes, I would stop whatever I was working on and cross the hall to join him under the covers.
And today, more than two years after he’s gone, I lie here on a beautiful autumn day, flat on my back in the huge king-size bed remembering it all as if it were yesterday. More than two years after Rick’s death – I still have no idea what I’m doing. Or what I want. Or what I even hope for. Because I still can’t get over what I’ve lost, and what I know I will never, ever get again.
