May 12, 2020 - Notes to my Sweetie

Another bitter milestone on the way to the future.

How can this be the beginning of the 10th month of this reality? I dare not travel back too much for I have tried and the trip is to dangerous for me to take. Perhaps at some future time that will be possible - but not at this moment.

I look at the home we built with mixed emotions. It is all for me now and I lament that the idea does not seem all to that appealing to me. It is familiar yes - it is the home we built - yet it is what we built - together.

Increasingly I am feeling it will not be in some way suited for me. I do not know when or if that will be a choice I will have to make - all I know is that with my connection to things - I am left with the sad realization that no one would really want most of it.

I know our son will not have an interest in much of it. I would encourage him to take some few items of historical family significance.

But the remnants of the life I lived that died 9 months past - seems all too trite to me right now.

Projects I had wanted to take on, compilation of friends photos, videos and so much more - all seeming now to not matter all that much. For they all take me back to a time in which my life was complete. Flawed as we humans are in so many ways - yet complete with the precious relationship that I had at the very core of my being.

All the things we had prepared as gifts - now really meaningless to me. To whom would they now go? Even things we had bought to share with the girls - never really materializing, Our incomplete relationship with them now settled because I no longer care about the deficiencies of the past. They all died on that Monday morning.

Those we cared about I will still reach out to. I have the calendar - Hallmark provides cards online which has helped greatly. I will continue this part of our lives as a tribute to you. I know they have been surprised when they receive their special remembrances. In a small way it makes me a tiny bit settled. Not much though - but it’s for you that I will continue until something emerges to tell me otherwise.

The emptiness in my life right now is immense. Only tempered by the presence of a wonderful person God brought to me - a presence that has made all the difference in ending the awfulness that was my every day.

I cannot bring myself to cook. It seems the idea of planning, purchasing and assembling elements to go through the motions for…me? It seems a bit absurd at the moment - so I have not yet had the focus nor desire to start. Perhaps it reminds me of you and how wonderful you always were taking care of me in that way. I always lifted you up in praise for your abilities. Abilities which I may have some small part of - but no real desire to attempt right now.

I have run the ship well - I believe. All the tasks quite distracting as they should be. Necessary but only to fulfill the needs they cry out to address - not for my joy.

For even though the infinite emptiness, heaviness, darkness and despair of everyday is now so refreshingly absent - the hollowness and absurdity of me being alone here in this nether-state of being - just too much at times for me to bear without an emotional breakdown.

Your clothes. What to do. I do the laundry as needed - change the bed sheets regularly. On the day I looked through your dresser - there you were in every item I had lovingly folded for you each week. These items are still too powerful for me to deal with. I know a day will be coming where I will have to say goodbye to them as well. I am just not ready yet.

I know we never talked about what life would be like for either of us alone. Except when you mentioned to me what I had already realized - that you would be in a tremendously difficult place if I was not here - but you were.

I do not receive a lot of comfort in being here - but thinking I saved you from that awful life - well it does give me a weird type of relief. Serving you was what my life was about - it seems I continue in that service as you sleep awaiting our Savior.

I know - and I’m sure you would agree - that I will need someone with me to go on. I have prayed to God that He knows this is the case. I am just not the type of personality that will forge off on my own for whatever pleases me. All that pleased me was you.

Now as a future without you looms - I know He has that problem solved. It is just me surviving until that time of revealing comes - when I will know how that relationship will work. I just know it will come, and it will work because He will be a part of it.

So on this first day of the 10th month of the worst 10 months of my life - I cry as I have been doing all these months.

My current sessions are so different than in the past. The only thing that has remained constant is that you are the topic of each session. Our unique relationship being so unique - even in that I have few to share the understanding of what we had been given. And how difficult it is to exist in this world without your part of me.

My faith is as strong as it ever was - it’s only my patience that is the issue.

The assurance that I will be seeing you again propels me forward. We had been praying constantly of the new chapter of our lives that would be coming with my retirement. Little knowing that each of us would be having our own new “chapter”. At times to me a cruel joke because of the pain I have endured. Yet me having that small peace knowing that you are set.

Your spirit was so powerful - and it had become so much a part of mine - that even today I struggle with the thought of each moment without your look - your touch. Being tortured without being able to express the affection that was just a normal part of our lives together. Now just an echo amidst the relics of our life that witnessed our love as it flowed between us.

All of this reminding me of your spirit - that part of you I always told you I was able to see - the part that God sees - the part He gave me the privilege to connect to. The part that will always be the foundation of the life that has brought me to today. And will be with me each day ahead.

Until I see you again - and I will in His glorious Kingdom - love always…..Steve