Each morning, I enter my office and stare at your photograph while my computer starts up. “Good Morning Dear,” I think, with fond affection. Sometimes, I even say it out loud. There isn’t much left you now that you have died just these photographs and a few memories.
I imagine you lying beside me in bed now. I roll over to give you a kiss. We ignore the morning breath that has developed overnight, and steal away a few moments to embrace before the day urges us to move on.
In the photo, you smile at me as your stand proudly beside our children. It’s as if to say, look at these gifts that I give to you. Our children are products of 21 years of loving each other. They are indeed “gifts.” I can’t help but see YOU each time I look at them. I only wish that you were here with us still. We miss you so.
My mornings are very different now. Instead of you, I now wake to find our youngest boy asleep in your spot. Yes, he is still sleeping in your spot, only now he doesn’t get the satisfaction of hearing you growl at him for doing so. Those were the days; I can almost here him giggling at you in defiance.
Sometimes I think back to the last time that we made love. You were so weak then, and still you were willing. Although we had no idea that you would be gone in just a couple of weeks, I remember crying in your arms just knowing that our time was limited. It’s been more than a year now, and I long to kiss your lips, to stare into those blue eyes of yours, and to hear you say “I love you.” I long for it, yet I know that I can never have it again.