One Year
This has been a bit of a rough week.
This past Tuesday, April 27, shouldhave been my 30th wedding anniversary. My husband and Ihad talked about what we wanted to do, hopefully with COVID behindus. Big plans were a trip to Southern California to do many of thetheme parks: Disneyland (husband was a big Disney fan), UniversalHollywood (ditto on Harry Potter), and Knotts Berry Farm. Smallerplan was a few days in Monterey for the Aquarium, Carmel and a shortdrive down the coast.
That all changed 6 days later, when hewent to the grocery store...and never came home, dead of a heartattack. In a sense that was good because I didn't have to witnessit...but I never really had a chance to say goodbye.
Since then, to quote the Grateful Dead,“what a long strange trip it's been”. I went from a studioapartment in San Jose to the guest room at my sister's to aretirement community in Antioch, and from being legally blind (due tocataracts) to being able to see, handle my own affairs and such. Ihave people around me to talk to, and even some very close friends.I'm in a much better place...and I believe that so is he.
But sometimes I feel the loneliness,the emptiness. It hits at odd times – getting out of bed to checkthe front door to make sure it's locked, filling my water bottle so Ihave it beside me in bed, getting out my daily medications, hearingsomething on the news and thinking, “I can't wait to tell...oh,wait...” Just the little things he did that I took for granted, andthe casual “Hi sweetie!” when he'd come in from a walk with a hugand a kiss, or when I was going through some depression in the fallof 2019 (mainly because of my vision) and he bought me a stuffedbunny – my “emotional support animal”.
He wasn't perfect, not by a long shot.His lack of follow-through, which left us without health insurance,contributed mightily to his eventual death as well as left me withoutsight. I'm still dealing with much of the aftermath about that lackof initiative as I try to settle a trust his mother left when shedied in 2017. The period of no sight also kept me at home, along withthe pandemic; I'm still uncomfortable going out on my own when I usedto be super-independent, and that's something I need to conquer nowthat I'm alone.
Years after my mother was widowed atthe age of 43, someone asked her if she ever thought about marryingagain. She said that at first she didn't think she could find anyonewho measured up to my father, then in later years as she enjoyed herindependence she didn't want to saddle herself with some old dudewith health issues and stuff. I feel like I'm in the same boat –I'm starting to really feel like I can do this “adulting” thing.I'm not totally closing myself off to romance – and I do have a“gentleman” friend of whom I'm fond though I think we'll just begood friends (he's 25 years older than me; I'm actually 3 yearsyounger than his daughter!) – but I'm not sure I really wantsomeone around permanently cluttering up my life.
So that's life from the “suddenlysingle” lane. I'll continue to muddle through to the best of myability; I figure my “best revenge” is to get healthy and live agood life. Or maybe less “revenge” and more doing what I know myhusband would have wanted for me.
So, how's life by you?