1 Year, 8 Months - Fading Memories

I curl up. I lay in yoga position of sleeping child. I try to remember you.

Remember more than your name, the thought of you, or visiting how I loved you, visiting my ache of missing you. I see only photographs or scenes from the day of those pictures in my mind. I want new memories. I do not want to be limited in my memory of you. I want to see a vision of you including your head, which seems to be fading. I want to remember your smell, your voice, your smile, your eyes, your body, the way you moved, where we were, all at once, without the need to focus and recall. I want memories of the everyday, driving, waking, watching TV, and eating. Oh, and to hear your treacherous snore!


And in the other bed my mom is dieing.

1 Years, 7 Months - Reminders, Memories

I am stripping the bed to wash the mattress cover. I lean over and look between the bed and the wall. Seeing all those mismatched socks brings tears to my eyes and such longing.
Every morning your alarm would go off before the sun rose. Sometimes it was dark and other times of the year the sun would be rising, with the color changing on the horizon, the lighter colors advancing across the deep blue sky. You would turn off the alarm and quietly sneak out of the bed. I would be awake, but not quite, with my eyes closed. I would listen to the familiar sounds, the creak of the bedroom door then the creak of the bathroom door. Silence for a few minutes, sometimes longer, then the shower turning on. I could tell it was the hot water and then a pause, the sound of the water increasing, as he turned on the cold faucet. Hearing the rings, as the shower curtain moved open and closed, I would drift to sleep.
I would awake again as the bedroom door opened. Rob dressed in jeans and a t-shirt for work. If it was cold his uniform would include a button-up cotton shirt over the t-shirt, blue or green, opened and un-tucked, cardigan style. The air would be damp from the steam escaping the bathroom. He would lean over me. I could smell his Contradiction for Men cologne, his Neutrogena T-gel shampoo, the Right Guard Active deodorant, and Orange Listerine. He would smile. His hair a bit damp but always surprisingly dry since it seemed I just closed my eyes and he was in the shower.
He would shake the covers and straighten them, standing at the foot of the bed, flinging the comforters in the air momentarily losing sight of each other. I would complain of the cold, to leave the blankets alone. He would complain I pulled all the covers up around my head and left my legs bare, that is why I was cold. The last comforter would drift down, floating unevenly between us, wafting his fresh shower scents through the air. He would come to the head of the bed and kiss my forehead, one arm extended next to my ear, the fresh Right Guard winning the aroma contest.
He would smile and say ‘I love you‘. I would smile and say, ‘Be Careful’. I used to worry. He was always so tired from working long hours in the heat with the long commutes. I worried because he tended to fall asleep anywhere, even when driving. I would say ‘Rob’ and he would snap awake. ‘I was blinking’. And I would respond, ‘That was a long blink. Let me drive’ and he would. I worried he would fall asleep driving or be electrocuted at work. Men were always getting hurt, going to the hospital, some died. Rob was always going to the emergency room for himself or taking other construction workers. I would say, ‘I love you, be careful.’ As I drifted back to sleep I would be comforted by the sound of the key in the door lock.
I often still wake at 4:30 or 5:00. The time of the alarm and then the good-bye kiss. I still find comfort in the sound of the key turning the front door lock of our house when I am in bed.
Oh yah, why the sadness tonight? When the covers floated above our heads Rob would playfully scorn me. My socks were always under the covers. Cold toes as I went to bed became hot. He always fished the socks out of the tangled covers and put them in the hamper. To find a collection by the side of the bed, well it just emphasized that Rob was not collecting them anymore. They just gathered dust until I collected them while changing the sheets or dusting under the bed. Rob was no longer here.

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?

1 Year, 6 Months - Inertia

I cried today
Sadness has weighed me down
I don’t want to move
I was up Friday and Saturday with no sleep
I feel nauseous
I don’t care about working
Moving takes so much effort and I don’t even care if I do move

1 Year, 5 months - Signs

I just miss you honey. I feel your hug in the wind and it comforts me. I think of you and see a large daisy sign. I wish you were by my side and I see a bus with a bee.

1 Year, 4 Months - Praying to the dead

Honey, can’t you help? Why isn’t it working? I promise I’ll lead a fulfilling life and not just stay inside, predominately in bed. Help me honey.

2 Years, Twenty Days - Songs, Alone

One verse keeps running through my head, "I don't know what to do, cause you know I still love you". I sing it over and over to myself like a jewelry box opening and closing its lid with the lonely dancer spinning in circles. I have done three rewinds before I realize it.
The toilet keeps running. I know it is the flap. Isn't anyone going to fix it? Do I call a plumber? Do I go to Home Depot? Do I tinker with it? When did I become so inept?

1 Year, 6 Months - Do Not Recognize Self

When I see the old lady in the mirror I know it is not definitive. I can see, just under the surface, where I am hiding. Just under the surface but I can not quite reach her. Nevertheless, I tell the eyes that look back at me not to worry, not to give up hope. I am still there. It is not over.

1 year, 8 months - Do the dead grieve?

For the first time I wondered if you were mourning too? Do you miss me as much as I miss you? Do you miss everyone? Can you see us but miss touching us, holding us, laughing with us, talking to us? Are you grieving too? I was struck by my selfishness. To think you were fine alone.

1 Year, 3 Months: Need, Living is a Chore

I curled in a ball and wailed. I was by myself and I wailed. I can not sleep. It is too late to take sleeping pills.

I can not give you up.
I need you.
I need you to hold me.
I need you to support me.
I need you to be the same.
I need your comfort now.
I can not wait anymore.
I want you so bad.

I cry and it comes from so deep inside. I need you. I need you. I am not O.K. You were my life. I hate this life. It is pointless. It is a job. Something I have to do. Eventually I have to get out of bed. I have to work and do errands. I have to feed myself everyday when nothing satisfies, nothing is appealing. My ribs shutter up and down as I sob. My nose runs on the pillow. There is no relief from the pain. I do not want to go on. I just go through the day as if it is a chore I must accomplish. I procrastinate and try to avoid the chore. I sleep in, I go without eating, and I drift. Yet there is no choice eventually. My brother and his wife will find me. My niece will expect me to get up eventually. She will want to eat so I will eat.
The drugs store the pain away a bit but it is still there. It is a huge, raw, empty hole with sorrow floating in its darkness. I think of you, so far away now. My love for you so unfulfilled. I am craving to be held, touched. I would love just an hour, just an hour to kiss you, to kiss your closed eyelids, to run my palm down between the muscles of your chest, to run my fingers through your soft hair, to smell you. The smell of you, cologne, sweat, Neutrogena T-Gel shampoo, your deodorant, your smell. I only need an hour to feel your weight on top of me.
I can not accept the fact that I can only be with someone else, a stranger to me today. I want to be faithful. Not out of respect, not out of obligation. I want to be faithful because my soul loves you. You are my soul mate. I can not understand why you had to die. I can not understand how people survive this? How do they handle the pain?
Come home to me or take me to you.