Mourning

Surrounded by people who love me and feeling alone because David is not one of them.  Everywhere I look I see and feel his absence.  I kind of wish his body was still here but even when I held his body he wasn't there anymore.  I put on his Ohio State ring because long ago he wore it.  I hug his clean laundry to my breast wishing it was filled with him.  I sleep close to the edge of the bed to give him room and don't pull covers away from his side of the bed.  I thought I would migrate there but didn't.  So many people writing on my wall about how wonderful he was and I weep that so many of us will miss him...and appreciate that others recognized how special he was.  Oh my David I wasn't ready for you to leave me.  I had a plan to help you get well again and walk with me in the park.  We did walk in the early spring and I wanted to walk in the actual spring, to wake up at 5 in the summer to walk before it got hot with bad air.  Walking was our bookends.  We began our friendship jogging through the trails in Reston before getting ready to go to work.  You would knock on my door and I would jump into my cut off jeans, a tee shirt and my yellow and blue Nike running shoes and off we'd  go.  I kept going because you were an old man and you kept going because I was an out of shape "girl".   We made it to 5 and 6 miles before breakfast.  We'd sit in that little kitchen on Tanners Cluster Court, drink coffee and talk before you left to practice law and I got my boys ready for school.  We continued with that as friendship deepened and we fell in love.  We did Jazzercise after work and on Saturday mornings.  You started swimming with the Master Swim team.  When I hurt my back most of my participation stopped but you continued and somewhere started a daily walk with Fred and his dogs on the W&OD and Sunday drives out to the mountains for serious hikes.  Last summer we started walking together again on Lee Drive in the Battlefield.  You pushed on and on.  Our goal was 30 minutes and we got up to 1.5 miles in that time.  We never did explore the trail to the old slave quarters. People called out that you were their inspiration as you plowed ahead with your walking stick, big hat and oxygen/pulse meter.  You kept a count of your steps on your iPhone and shoved the phone in the face of a doctor who was treating you like a fragile old man. You did over 10,000 steps for several days before you were hospitalized with low platelets and bleeding.  Oh my David I thought we would have a long walking history at the end of our time not this abrupt bookend.  What am I going to do without you as my sounding board, my support, my dear love.  I may never eat those Godiva milk chocolate bars you kept bringing me this last month.  I found one in my purse Monday and remembered your saying "I found these and couldn't resist getting them for you because you love them."  You gave my life meaning, purpose, structure and so much love, so much love.  I continued to be surprised at the depth of this feeling and how it encompassed ,,,,,,,, just everything.  My love for you will never go away.