Valentine's 2019

"My scars remind me that I did indeed

survive my deepest wounds.  That in itself

is an accomplishment.  And they bring to mind

something else, too.  They remind me that the

damage life has inflicted upon me has, in many places,

left me stronger and more resilient."

Steve Goodier

Love, 

Today, another Valentine's Day without you, yet this year rather than crying I smiled thinking of the many things you did for me on Valentine's Day throughout the years we were together.   And while I continue to treasure some of the gifts you gave me for Valentine's Day and for our soon to be wedding anniversary, it was never about the gifts but rather the understanding that you were going out of your way to do something that you thought would please me.

Yes, love, I have survived, and as noted by Mr. Goodier, survival has left me stronger and more resilient.  I miss you.  I will always miss you.  Sometimes I think that I scent you on the wind or that I feel the sweetness of your breath on my neck at night.  Sometimes I swear that you are near and that you are keeping your promise to look after me always.  Other times, I despair wondering if I will ever earn the wing necessary to join you.  But I survive.  I go on.  Indeed I do even more than survive because I find I  have things I look forward to: I smile, I laugh, I love.

During the past year, your granddaughter was born.  How I mourned that you were not here to share that moment.  In my mind I could see you with her when she was older, walking, holding her hand, laughing. A pipe dream.  But I also smiled at the hope that she brings, at the thought that a part of you has survived and been reborn in a new, little person.   I like to think that as she grows, I will occasionally see you in her, just as I do in our daughter and our son:  a certain expression, a certain laugh, all those things that we pass from generation to generation.  Mostly I rejoice at how she is surrounded by love and by parents who I believe will make good decisions for her until she is old enough to make her own.

Again, I can never thank you enough for all that you gave me, all the things you did to care for me.  I will see you soon enough, but until then there are mountains to climb, places to go, people to meet, jokes to laugh at.  Until we meet again, rest assured that a piece of my heart is always and irrevocably yours.

Love, Me

 

Dear Lloyd,

Today I did some minor plumbing upstairs and, while learning these new skills, however minor they may seem to you, brings a sense of competency and pride and yes, frustration at my stupidity, that some might laugh at, it also gave me time to be thankful. I am thankful for the times that you took on the drudgery of these types of chores to allow me to go play or follow an interest that had nothing to do with our well-being though it did for my well-being. I know I thanked you, that I continue to thank you in my heart and in my prayers, asking God to pass it on to you, but did I never thank you enough that my appreciation sunk into your core. Plumbing, electric work, you did it all. I miss you, love, but life goes on, including household maintenance. I try to protect that home that sheltered us and that you left to me. Until we meet again. Melissa

As many of you know, my husband went to God shortly before Christmas a few years ago. Shortly after his loss, as I was going through his closet, I found the Christmas gifts had had bought for me and hidden there until he could wrap them. One of those gifts was a new pair of cycling sunglasses. Last summer I thought I had lost them during some ride and shed many a tear. Yesterday I found them in a vest pocket. You know you haven't worn a vest for awhile when it takes a year to find something you forgot you put in them. It was a smile for the day and felt like a hug from him at a time when I needed it.

December 2017

Love, Tomorrow is the day you went home and left me here. Would you be proud of the way I have gone on without you or would you chide me for my weak faltering progress, the times when getting up and putting one foot in front of each other seemed more than I could manage. I always told you that you were my strength even while you insisted that it was inside me hiding all the time.
I laugh, love. I look forward to the children coming home for Christmas and the traditions that we continue. I ride my bicycle, though perhaps not as much as I should. I see friends. I go to work. Life is not as completely barren without you as it was at first. There is color and sound and I have scabbed over, a bit misshapen perhaps, but whole. I made some new riding friends that make me smile. There is some warmth in my life.

Still, not a day goes by that I do not think of you. Now, however, I often smile as I remember something you said or did. The tears still come, but not as often. Thank you for those times, those memories. Thank you for the hard times as well as the good times. I am grateful. Even those years we just muddled through, the first year with only a mattress on the floor and no furniture, I would not trade them. The only change I would have made would to have taken away your pain and made them last longer. And, the third child I wanted but you felt we should not have....I would fight you harder on that. You see, in each of the children, I see parts of you and I realize that you are still here in so many ways.
I like to think of you without the pain that haunted you for so many of the last years. The crinkles around your eyes, the furrows, the tell tale signs of constant pain have eased and you are young again, young and strong. And you are waiting, patiently, knowing my path has not yet ended. And you are glad that I still have dreams and plans. Somehow I know that you want me to have a long and happy life, that you do not want me to grieve for you but to learn from you. And I try. I don't always succeed, but I try.
Rest peacefully. I am fine. Tomorrow is a busy day, purposefully so to keep me from brooding. Until then. Love, Me

Tit in a Wringer

" You cannot swim for new horizons until

you have courage enough to lose sight of the shore."

William Faulkner

 

 

Dear Lloyd,

While I talk to you daily, it has been quite awhile since I have written you.  Do you remember how you would tease me when I would try something and end up having to ask for help?   You always sensed how difficult it was for me, asking for assistance, leaving myself vulnerable.  You knew why, but still I cannot explain it to others.  Despite the years, the sore has never quite scabbed completely over.  

Today I, as you always said in these situations, "Caught my tit in the wringer."  I bought new living room furniture; however, I assume due to bed bug issues (shiver and knock on wood), they no longer will take your old furniture when they deliver your new.  I expected to have some time prior to delivery, but they are bringing it Wednesday.  Heavy though it was, I started to take it outside to deal with later. 

Of course, the recliner caught in the doorway and would not budge forward or backward.  The place where I "thought" I had left a spare key no longer held a spare key, and the other doors were locked.  I managed to climb over the chair, but could not budge it from that direction either.  Then, a spark, fired by necessity, as I heard you say, "Don't panic.  Think about this."  I could feel your  smile and almost hear your laughter, something I starve for.  I do miss you so, love, but I have just accepted that is the way it will always be.  I have good times now.  I laugh and enjoy life.  But I do miss you and wish you were here to share with me. 

Tom, of course, thought this was an ideal situation to try to escape to the great outdoors, something that has really never been a problem.  But I corralled him and kept him in.  Lucy, the one I suspected would make a mad dash, was as good as gold.  Yes, naming him for Tom Sawyer was a wise move. 

I took a good look at the situation and remembered one time you had to take the legs off a piece of furniture.  Down to the basement to view your tools and try to figure out which was appropriate.  Twenty screws later, the bottom was off, the chair was freed, and I knew how to tackle the love seat.  I will leave the couch until tomorrow so I have a place to sit tonight.  

 

Miss you, love.  Melissa

 

 

November 2nd

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in

the world, which I find myself constantly

walking around in the daytime and falling 

in at night.  I miss you like hell."

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Dear Lloyd,

Happy Birthday, my love, on this, the second birthday without you.  It is odd, knowing how you hated your birthday and never wanted a fuss, that this is one of those days that I struggle with getting through for I know you would have wanted me to forget that it exists, that this was the day you entered the world and began to prepare yourself for our life together.  I have taken off work today, love.  The temperature is unseasonably warm, and I intend to explore some new roads on my bicycle on your special day.  Perhaps I should have worked, but I hope to celebrate you today, to concentrate my thoughts on how lucky I was to have found you and to have had you in my life for as long as I did.  Whether I can or not remains to be seen, but at work I most certainly would have mourned. 

 Life goes one without you:  some old patterns continue missing the richness of the strand you provided, some new patterns are emerging,  and some patterns have been irrevocably lost to me as you are.   I feel incomplete.  There are so many things I want only to share with you, and over time I have come to realize even more all the holes in life that you somehow managed to fill.  I particularly miss your saying that things will be okay when something bad happened, and somehow, because you shouldered some of the burden, they were.  But perhaps, in light of the difficulties of this year, it is good that you are not here, for I know anything that hurt me bothered you as much or more than anything that hurt you.  That was part of the relationship we had:  when one was cut, the other bled.

I still talk to you, love, and I still hear what you would say in my mind, but your voice is leaving me.  I remember your smell, I remember how you looked, I remember your touch, warm and comforting and always sexy, and I particularly remember your words, but the sound of your voice seems so distant and it bothers me that I can't recall it except in wisps that are peppered here and there.  Danny came to visit a bit back, and the speech patterns brought you back, but he has his own life and lives so far away.  He misses you too, love, and talked about sometimes he feels you are there, playing with him, when the wind knocks his hat off or something unexpected happens.  He, like so many, tell me I should find someone else, but frankly, nobody is knocking down the door to be with me and I am unsure how you meet people in this new world of computers and such.  As I told him, it is hard to find someone who wants a sixty year old when he can have a forty year old.  I am not resigned to being alone for the rest of my life, but I have accepted that I very well could be.  And it is not, love, so very terrible.  I am discovering strengths in myself that I did not know existed before.  You know I always loved the lines in the Rascal Flatts song, "I've found you find strength in your moments of weakness."  I can't say I am at peace with everything, but I have found acceptance.

The children have adjusted, love, though just this past week-end Tiffany told me that she still thinks of you almost daily.  I feel certain Jeff does as well.  As you would know, he was always the sensitive one, an artist at heart.  And certainly I do, sometimes with a smile and sometimes with tears and sometimes with both. Rest assured that despite the pain of loss, if given a choice as to whether to have what we did and face that loss or lose the pain, thus losing the love, I would make the same choices.  As I reaffirmed on every anniversary, I would say yes again.  

Until my time comes, love, take care and don't worry.  I will muddle through somehow.  Happy Birthday, love.  Today I will look for you in the fall leaves, the wind, the open fields, and the forests.  

All my love, Melissa