5 Years, 7 Months - Holidays

The family has gathered for Thanksgiving. We are all playing on the beach. Then my niece tells me there is a bee flying by me. She believes he comes to visit me.
She told me the first year that she kept seeing 444 all around her. She kept looking at the clock right at 4:44. I told her that was the day he died, 04/04/04. She did not realize the date was the same. She just could not figure out why this number kept showing up. Now she believes it is her uncle letting her know he is with her.

2 Years, 11 months, 27 days - Signs

Signs - Beehive signs for freeway symbols, a stack of stuffed bees, Mexican restaurant sign on the curb featuring shrimp Diablo.

You were my worker bee. I was your queen bee. In Zihuatanjeo you only ate shrimp Diablo.

2 Years, 11 Months - Entitlement

I feel the materialistic desires are owed me. I wait, feeling entitled to wealth. After all, have I not lost all the important things in life?
Removed from my life entirely are the simplest things - love, happiness, a future, dreams, and hope. I have lost passion, desire, lust, ecstasy. Days drift by without joy. Even pain is trivial.
Why should I not then have luxury? Without love, with happiness taken away for half my life, with no hope of joy or visions of a future, should I not have wealth? Do I not deserve rich chocolate, down bedding, a daily massage? With the days dripping by can I not be sidetracked with endless money to gamble or shop? Am I not owed room service, luxury hotels, a personal assistant, a daily house cleaner, and a chef? With each step so difficult, could others do the daily chores of my life so I could have fewer troubles? Can you give me this my husband? Can you give me this God?
Could I win the lottery so I could worry less about mortgages, laundry, eating, and trivial responsibilities? With all that is pure gone, comfort, security, peacefulness, a warm body at night, someone to hold me, to smooth my hair when I cry, to call me several times a day, without any of this, can I at least have money to pass the days?

2 Years - Second Anniversary of Death

Today is two years and the rain is pouring all our tears. The white lilies, death flowers, are blooming.
When I got in the car, Elton John was playing for me ‘Someone save my life tonight.’ Elton John was special because only you knew I liked him. If you were channel surfing you always stopped for Elton John, turned to me and smiled. Then I would sing for you. Only for you, otherwise I only sang alone in my car.
When your daughter and I checked into the hotel, she found a watch on top of the folded towels. I said we should turn it in to Lost and Found. She said it was a gift from you. Who else would leave something in our room on this day? A watch with white, your favorite color on me, and an orange stripe, my favorite color, that matched the shoes I was wearing, with a silver tone square face, because I only wear silver or platinum and I like squares, and four rhinestones. Four, 04-04-04, the day you died.
I got in my car. The tears fell in a solid stream on the outside corners of my eyes. I held my head in my hands. I rested my elbows on the steering wheel and I wailed. Slowly, then deeper, the wailing mounted, injured, hurt, sadness from deep inside.
Only one of my oldest friends called today. Your daughter and I mourned. We left a rubber duck under a small tree overlooking the end of the Grand Canyon, on top of the highest rock on the ledge, off trail at Canyonlands National Park. We left it at the Grand Canyon because the first time both of us saw it was with you. We left it at the end of the deep canyon because what was deepest in us had ended. We left one of your rubber ducks because we wanted to be there with you. Because it still hurts.