Pictures and Memories

My Dearest Love,

Today I went for a walk in the woods with the dog. It is beautiful here right now. A clear, fall day with leaves raining down to carpet the woodland paths. Warm too, for the end of September. Your birthday is coming up and what am I going to be able to get you this year? You are beyond my forgetful ways.

Did you hear? Your boy has a girlfriend, for real. She is a cutie and someone you know from the old days, the old neighborhood. Remember the family that moved into the yellow house behind us? They played as kids, went to school together. Now they lie on the couch like two peas in a pod watching movies, and make cookies in the kitchen at night while I hide in our bedroom like a spy.

He is very cute in all of this. He blushes when I mention it (which I try not to do too much). He is growing too. Every day, he seems to stretch a millimeter or two. He is not the little boy of my memory any longer. So bittersweet this is. I miss you.

Today, I added the pictures I took while walking the dog, to a collection of photos I am building on line. While doing so, I came across the folder of pictures we compiled for your memorial. I ran through them all, all three hundred some. Seeing you again was wonderful, and sad, and torturous all at the same time. Whenever I see pictures of you, I am carried back to those times (at least for the ones that belong to "our" era) and I think of what we did, and said, and cried over, and fought about, and loved each other for, and how you helped me to define myself. It is so hard to see the effects the disease and the treatments had on you. But through it all, you kept your smile, and your love, and your spirit. I remember the night you finally left that tortured shell of a body - you spirit moving out until there was only the slimest of ties between your true self and the failing body next to me - then, with a sigh, you were gone.

You know that I have to move on, and I have to learn how to live without you, but still, you were such a part of my life, that it is difficult to completely let go of you. Yet, that is what I must do. I don't mean "forget" you, but "let go." I must let go for both you, and me. You need to be free of the tethers that hold you to this plane and I need to be free to live my life, as much of it as is left to me.

I don't know that others understand this part very well. Perhaps they do and it is I who is carrying the burden of the past. I don't know.

There is someone new in my life. She is a voice on the other end of a phone connection, or the writer of an email, or the author of a blog. I have not met her in person, yet. Soon. And, I have to tell you, I am so glad that she is there (wherever "that" is). The period of time right after your death was pretty bad. Very bleak. After a period of time where it was I who felt dead, I was touched by something that was very much alive. This touch lifted me up from that dark place. It is a beginning of something, but I don't yet know what.

I will let you know.

D.

Letting Go

My Dearest Love,

What has it been now? Three months since I listened to the small sigh that marked your last breath on this earth? Sometimes, everything feels timeless, as if I am suspended in time and touched on every surface by all the events I have known, especially your love.

We were together for the last third of my life. More than anyone else save my parents, and in this analysis, they are not participants. You shaped my life. You created the life that I now try to care for and nourish. Our children I speak of.

There were times during your illness that you spoke of the future - when you were no longer there. You asked me if I would love again, marry again, have another partner in life. I said, "No, I couldn't." And, it was true. My heart could not contain that concept. My heart was full and had no room for more. My heart was torn with the thought of losing you. I said, "No, never."


For the last three months, I have mourned you. I go to sleep sensing your absence. I awake knowing you are gone. I feel the ache as though a part of my physical body has been torn away.


I think, though, that you knew me better than I knew myself. Why should that surprise me? You were always ahead of me. You knew that I had only a finite capacity for sorrow, for pain, for longing, for grieving the loss. You knew that I would rise some day and find a bit of sun when I expected none. You were always wiser than I.

Not too surprising to you, I have found a ray of unexpected light. Also not so surprisingly, not all who learn of it are happy.

You see, in your power, you so deeply imprinted on those who loved you, that they cannot easily understand that I might turn to another someday to share the joy of life. This is what confronts me now. How to go forward, as you once wished me to do, despite my objections that never, never, would I be able to love again - to go forward - to love our children for you, and to be happy in my life.

My Love, I wish with all my heart that you were still with me, that you were still my guide and my sleeping angel when I would awake in the middle of the night and see your beautiful face in the moonlight. How I wish.

That is not to be. I must find my way without you by my side now. Others worry that should I take interest in someone else, it somehow signals abandonment for you. You, who can see my heart more clearly than even I, know that is not true. Give me wisdom as I go forward. Touch me when I sleep and help me to find the way. Let me not lose the love of those closest to me. Let me be the best father that I can be.

With all my love,

D

Upcoming Dilemma

My Dearest Love,

What am I going to do about Christmas? You were the angel, the tree, the presents, the wrapping, the bows. You were IT.

I don't think I can be here this Christmas. I can't make it be the same. This was always your holiday, your spirit filling the house, inspiring your children to do the decorations. You were always done with your shopping early, knew just what to get everyone.

You know my heart was never in it. It has no religious meaning for me and I hate the commercialism that has infested the whole pre-season period. To me, it is a cynical greedfest encouraged by merchants trying to make a buck.

I don't want to be here this year. I don't want to wake up and miss the glow in your eyes when you hear the children sneaking around and dumping out their stockings. I don't want to sit around a dead tree and take one fewer turns at opening our presents. I don't want any of it. But your son does.

Joe doesn't want to go anywhere over the holiday. He wants everything to be the same, which of course it can never be.

I am torn. I don't know what to do.

Your Love,

D.