TheBanyanTree: I Need to Keep Her in My Sight

[Margaret R. Kramer]

12/9/98
Cyber love
Cyber sex
When you have it is wonderful.
I wish that more people would get to love Through the Internet.
Our love has indeed turned out to be the best
As I have said we will be together until I turn 100 years old,
The way I feel now I will never even leave then.

As with each passing day I love you more
You give me a reason for living!  I love you!

Ray

No, he hasn’t left even though he died when he was 76 years old.  He didn’t
make it to 100, although that promise is stamped on almost every card or
note I received from him.  But he really didn’t break his promise.  Ray is
still near me, giving me advice, encouraging me, and comforting me when I’m
sad.  I wish his physical body was here, too, but I’m making do with the
spiritual Ray.  He won’t leave me alone on earth until I’m ready to join him
on the spiritual plane.

I flipped the calendar this week and suddenly, it turned out to be October.
Where did the summer go?  The leaves are beginning to change color here in
Minnesota.  It hasn’t been warm, but it hasn’t been cold either.  We had our
first frost advisory for Friday and I hauled my houseplants inside that
summer outside.

I also took advantage of not working my second job on Friday night to move
all my summer clothes into the storage room and move my winter clothes into
my closet that no longer has Ray’s clothes.  I have the WHOLE closet, and in
spite of that, I realize it’s a widow’s closet and therefore, I still keep
my clothes shoved neatly over to my side.

Ray’s birthday was last Saturday, September 27.  We were never big birthday
celebration people, but we would acknowledge a birthday’s importance.  For
me, this first birthday after his death was going to be important, so I
planned it carefully for several months.

I put a “Card in Memoriam” for Ray in the Saturday newspaper.  It was very
cheap.  They must make the BIG money off of the obituaries, because it cost
me a fortune for Ray’s.  I was so glad the “Care in Memoriam” was
inexpensive, because I think I’ll put in a memoriam for Ray on his death
date, too.  Several people saw his picture and mentioned it to me and that
made me feel good.

Asher and boys and I went to the Twins game.  We did our old routine of
taking the bus to the game.  I cried on the bus.  I cried when we got our
seats.  I cried while eating a hot dog.  I cried while the Twins were
losing.  But I was happy, too, because I knew Ray was at the game with us.
He was glad that we chose to honor him by going to a Twins game.

The next day Joe and I went to Fort Snelling cemetery.  I put some fall
flowers by Ray’s stone and left some chocolate cat Peeps for him.  His can
of Pepsi is still there.  We visited Joe’s wife, Alice, and left her some
fall flowers, too.  Then we changed the flowers at my grandparents’ graves
from the summer blooms to fall foliage.

The bus going back home from the Twins game was PACKED.  We were smushed in
there like sardines.  A hippie looking guy, probably a bit older than me,
gave up his seat for Ashlin, my younger grandson.  This guy was a bit chunky
with long gray hair and a full, kind of unkempt wiry gray beard.  His white
T-shirt was actually a dirty gray (he sounds like the Gray Man, doesn’t
he?), and he was holding a tattered paperback with several pages marked by
yellow sticky notes.

As we went along the route, the bus’ passengers shifted and changed.  People
got on and people got off.  As the bus got fuller, those of who were
standing in the aisle had to move towards the back of the bus.  The man with
the gray beard didn’t want to change his position.  “You see that woman in
the seat over there with the salt and pepper hair?  I need to keep her in my
sight,” he said to me.

That clicked.  Even though Ray and I are in different places.  I keep him in
my sight and I know he keeps me in his.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com

When witches go riding,
and black cats are seen,
the moon laughs and whispers,
‘tis near Halloween.
~Author Unknown
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