TheBanyanTree: A Year without My Sweetheart

[Margaret R. Kramer]

8/15/05
Hi Love:
 Slow day at work again, I got your stuff from kinko's. The guy said they
were ready at 1PM yesterday. He did not have them folded so I waited. 
  Miss you make sure you call me tonight. Got to check the rest of my mail.
Love you too much! 
Ray & Geo.

I keep Ray's wallet in my underwear drawer.  Money is intimate and I guess
the wallet belongs near intimate clothing, so it makes sense (cents) to keep
it there.  Get it?!!  I know, bad pun.

I see it every day when I pull out a clean pair of underwear, but yesterday,
I decided to go through it.  I'm sure I've gone through it a million of
times since he died, but it's almost like my mind doesn't grasp when I've
done something before, especially when it's about my sweetheart.

So I pulled out all the miscellaneous cards.  Nothing special . . . social
security, health card, Medicare, and a library card.  Of course, his debit
card, a few credit cards, and his driver's license.  He had our car
insurance information in his wallet.

I found the grocery receipt from the last time we went grocery shopping
together, 1/18/08 at 6:43 pm.  He always kept the receipts to go over them
and find errors.  He loved it when they screwed up a price and he could get
money back.

I really hate grocery shopping, and I could have let him do it, but it just
something we did together.  I don't know if we really enjoyed doing it
together, but it was one of our things.  Since he worked in a grocery store,
he liked to compare prices and services.  He always yelled at the cashier,
because he'd stand at the counter watching everything he/she rang up.  Then
I had to run interference so they wouldn't call security.  What I would give
for just a few minutes of grocery shopping with him.

I put everything back and tucked the wallet back into my underwear drawer.
It will be safe and loved there, although I'd rather see it in his back
pocket than in my drawer.

A year on February 25.  Would he even recognize me?  I've lost 30 pounds.  I
don't eat as many sweets.  I don't work out as much.  I can't tear the bed
off of my back in the morning, whereas when Ray was alive, I would bound out
of bed with as little as four to five hours of sleep.

I wear the same clothes.  I drive the same car.  Asher and the boys live
with me now, and boy, wouldn't Ray hate that!  They lived with us before
when Ray and I first lived together and it wasn't pretty.  I don't know how
we survived it.  Maybe because we didn't make them an issue between us.

So, his office is gone and is now the boys' room.  The piano moved into the
living room and the CDs/DVDs bookshelf moved from the back wall to the side
wall.  Ray's desk is in the basement, as well as his file cabinet.  I gave
Asher his printer and monitor, as well as his digital camera.

Ray's coffee mug is in the cupboard.  His shaver is in the medicine cabinet.
I think I kept his prescription bottle with a tab of Viagra in the medicine
cabinet, too.  His flower van is still kept in the garage and we use it once
in a while to move things.  Joe uses it when his own car is being repaired.

His clothes are gone.  His boots are gone.  I organized all his tools in the
garage, so his workbench is pristine.  The self-propelled lawn mower he was
trying to fix was taken to a recycling place.

A basement window is cracked and needs to be replaced.  I need to replace a
ceiling tile in the basement.  A window screen needs to be repaired.  Joe
bought the part for the baseboard heater in the kitchen, but we've never
replaced it.

The deck was stained this past summer.  Joe and his friend Charles cleaned
out the gutters.

My goofy neighbor Mary moved out and a bunch of 20+ year olds moved in.  I
hate them and will stop at nothing to get them evicted.  Ray would have been
more laid back and probably would have made friends with them.

I bought new flannel sheets for our bed.  I bought a new computer.  I bought
myself a new digital camera.  I have more gray hair.

I have a different job, but with the same company, than when Ray died.  I'm
a SharePoint Administrator.  My job stress is about 100 times more than when
Ray died.  I don't dare leave my desk most of the time.  I rarely have easy
days.  But it's an interesting job, a good job, whether it's secure or not,
who knows?

We're in a deep recession.  I'm sure if Ray was still alive, he wouldn't be
working at the store anymore.  I think they were trying to make him quit
before he died.  It was getting more difficult for him physically.  But
instead of making him clean toilets, I wish they would have just talked to
him about leaving.  He was thinking about it anyway.  We discussed it a lot,
but he stayed.  Until he died.

I took a second job doing standardized test scoring last April and I liked
it.  I even was a supervisor on my second go around.  The pay was good, it
was close to home, and it was interesting working with a bunch of teachers.
They're getting ready to hire again and I signed up.  

And I do my survey job.  It's boring, easy, and a bit of a drive, but it's
extra dollars.  I'm lucky to have two jobs, where some people don't even
have one. 

Ray would like the people I work with on my second job.  He would like the
widows.  They're the new people.  Would he like Joe?  I don't know.  He'd
probably say he's a jerk.

But Joe isn't a jerk anymore.  It's like someone turned a switch and he's
been the boyfriend I always wanted.  No fights, no tantrums, no jerkiness,
just a nice person.  I'm wondering if it's because he's past his year.

It's amazing what a year is like.  I'm still distraught and prone to extreme
wailing, but I'm learning to incorporate Ray's death into my life.  He's
with me, but not with me the way he was.  He still cheers me on.  He still
encourages me.  But I don't have him to kiss.  I don't have him to whisper
in his ear.  No one watches CSI on TV.  His laptop is in the kitchen and the
boys use it to play online games.  But the online poker games he loved so
much are still there.  If he came home tomorrow, he could sit down and start
playing.

Ray left me many gifts.  He showed me how to love, how to be a wife.  How
little things don't matter, but being in the same room, breathing the same
air, does.  I'm passing that way of loving on to Joe and he's getting it.
Love is not a battle, it's a collaboration.

He gave me the courage to try new things, so I'm going forward with this new
life, because he laid the groundwork for me when we fell in love.

I know he's happy, because I've established a tenuous relationship with his
children.  I know he would be happy about that, because no matter how bad
they treated him, he still loved them.  And he would want me and them to at
least respect each other.  Every time I exchange an email with them, I can
see Ray smiling.  I'm letting them know he loves them, because they need to
hear that.

And, finally, I'm a more compassionate person.  Ray always helped people in
need.  And I've learned from him to slow down and take a few minutes to
listen and to give.

I was so honored to have him in my life and I was especially honored that he
loved ME!  And he gave me a chance to love him back.  I was a lucky girl and
I'm still lucky because I carry him in my heart.

Well, dearest Sweetheart, we have a date at Fort Snelling National Cemetery
on Wednesday, February 25.  It's your death day, one year past, and I'll be
there with you.