What I Should've Said...

What I should’ve said was “I love you” before you walked out the door. If only I had known it would be the last time I would see you. If only I had known that was my last chance. You were not yourself that morning. The spooning didn’t linger too long and you jumped up out of bed almost as fast as toast popping up when its ready. When I came downstairs to say goodbye I took in the image of you sitting on the couch wearing your favorite Giants baseball cap as you tied your high top sneakers. I asked if you were ok. You snapped back at me, something you just never did. It made me feel uneasy. I wondered what was wrong. I wanted to fix it. I always wanted to fix things then.

Your last words to me were “Hey Cat, can you at least take out the garbage for me today?” Cat was one of the many pet names you gave me. I told you that I would and looked at you wondering what I did wrong. I wondered why we didn’t say “I love you” to each other before you jetted out the door in a huff. I took those things for granted then. I took you for granted. For years I lived with many regrets, that was one of them.

Later on that day I would have the chance to see you again but it would be in the morgue. Then it would be your coffin. Then I would never see you again.

Today I am remarried and I never want to live with regrets. None of us knows what the future will bring. Every morning Lou leaves for work I always say “I love you”. And he always says it back. Then we hug before he walks out the door. I hope he will always come home to me where I will be waiting for him with a big hug hello…….the hug I never got the chance to give to you that day……

And sometimes I can still feel you hug me from heaven……

Death Doesn't Take A Holiday...

That was the headline nobody wanted me to read….the news they didn’t want me to see on September 5, 1994. The day my life stopped.

I remember sitting at my dad’s house after we had just come back from the morgue where I saw Paul’s body, the last time I would ever see him, ever. Forever seemed impossible to me then, and sometimes still does. As I sat in the chair sobbing till I had nothing left in my body, till I was dropping to the floor there was a lot of bustle around me, I heard muffled sounds, voices that I couldn’t make sense of and yet they were so close. The news was on TV that nite and everytime I wanted to watch nobody would let me. Apparently Paul had already made a headline that nite. I was angry because I wanted to see it…nobody understood it was all I had left….all that was left of him.I was clinging to any thread of hope that he would come back to me….that I could see his beautiful face, feel his strong arms around me. The place where I felt safe.

Safety became something I would never feel again. Love was something I feared I would never experience without him in my life….until I met Lou.

The next day when the newspaper came out I got a hold of it somehow and read the headline…. “Death Doesn’t Take A Holiday”. It was like someone was cutting through a wound so deep, till more blood came weeping out of it. It was Labor Day that year, the day of the accident. What creative writing. I wondered if that person ever lost someone who was their whole life, I wondered if they realized the impact of their words….the words that have stayed with me for the past 13years, about the special person in my life who couldn’t stay…..

The one who went to fly with the angels……