I’m sitting in the blue chair with Trudy who, if you can believe it, is even needier than ever.  The TV is idling through pictures of the bad selfies we took this summer – including that crazy one of you with the two hats and the plastic gun that we took in the gift shop in St. Joe, as well as pictures of the cows and chickens.  It feels like any other night, like you are just down the hall, in bed early and I am just finishing my show before joining you.  Except that you’re not. And when I do go to bed, hours from now – staying up late to help me fall asleep faster – I will turn left into the guest room and not right into the room I cannot bear to go into.   

Remember when we talked about the owls?  How I wondered what would remind me most of you, and make me feel like you were here with me, much like my family feels about Mom and cardinals.  Remember when we both said it would be the owls?  I heard you this morning, if that’s the case.  The great horned was outside and while most of me wants to say it was just a coincidence that warmed my heart, I’ll admit, I really want to think you’re telling me that you’re okay.  

I wish you were here, of course I do.  I wish I could tell you how horrible my day was.  I wish I could tell you about all the ways my heart broke today.  I wish I could ask you what the passcode is to the flashdrive you left, or if there’s anything else on there other than insurance forms.  I wish we had remembered to have you show me how to cut up the chicken thighs, since I have about ten meals’ worth in the freezer that I don’t know what to do with.  I wish I could vent to you about how much pressure I feel to write the best damn thing I’ve ever put to paper for your life story obituary. I wish you could fix the stupid toilet in the half bath or tell me why the cord on the back of the TV was covered in scotch tape. I wish I could give you more time to do the things on the bucket list I found in your phone today. I wish you could be here to tell me if it’s smart or stupid that I agreed to go to Florida.  I wish I could hear you say you love me one more time. I wish, and I wish. 

But what I really wish, more than anything, is that you could read and hear and feel the love that is pouring out for you right now.  From Rosemary who called your phone, happily getting voicemail just to hear your voice one more time or the people who have texted your number to say how much they loved you or how much they will miss you.  People I don’t even know.  I wish you could hear the stories that people tell me about you.  How the fire chief thought of you like a son and how they are going to put your name on the memorial at the fire station in Yale – something I know you would feel so very proud of. I wish you could hear how Gunnar’s mom called you a “real life angel” for changing her son’s life. I wish you could come up the drive in your truck and make your dog much happier.  I wish you could hear how sad your oncologist was today when she called.  I wish you could see our friends and how much they miss you already.  I wish you could know how many people have called me multiple times, ostensibly to check on me, but I think it’s to share and cry and laugh together over a man we all loved so dearly. 

I wish beyond wishes that you were right down the hall and that I would soon be there with you, and since I’m dreaming, I wish this stupid disease had never entered your body or our lives. 

I miss you, Chief.  It is taking everything I have when people ask me what I need not to just scream, “I need him back!” because that is the only thing I need right now that can make me feel any better.  You.  You are my person.  And you are so deeply loved and deeply missed.

Love,

Me