Year 5: Sometimes
Sometimes in Dreamland, you’re remarkably alive:
I hear your faint voice saying: ‘I
sure picked the right woman to raise my sons.’
I see you sitting beside me, for
a blink, and it’s suddenly OK that I’m only using one of the two tickets
available per family for Max’s graduation from Elementary School.
I feel your familiar laughter
with mine when my silliness takes over a moment in time.
I know you reminisce with me in
the sweet memory of our first spoken words to one-another – so fitting for our
relationship - at a candy machine in a break room at work.
Sometimes, in life still, I hurt:
I surrender to not always knowing
what to do as a single parent.
I wake and know my coffee routine,
for now, is solo.
I complete forms again and again and
see my option, ‘Widow’, in clear black and white, waiting for its checkmark.
Mostly, I am happy:
I see our sons glowing and growing.
I feel love all around me in life -
and in Dreamland
I am living and loving and
embracing as much of this beautiful life as I can.
Always, I am grateful:
For our time together on this
earth.
For the incredible memories, both
good and not.
For the souls we brought into this
world together.
For the laughter. Oh, the laughter.
For eternal love.
Thank you, Patrick, for loving me and for the privilege of
being your wife. For almost 24 years. I loved you to your last breath. I do
love you, still. Always.
