2005 Story Set
| Date: April 4, 2005 I drove to work as I usually do - down 880. Driven that for about 10 years now. I didn't start crying until halfway there. Something sets me off. Something about driving - they say your mind is free to wander. It's free to go where you are trying to keep it from going by staying busy all the rest of the time. And if not busy, I am in bed, covers up, flipping channels. Today I was crying harder - because the trip to San Diego is getting closer. Or maybe I just needed to. It is wrenching. Just comes out of nowhere and you are suddenly lost. It physically hurts. I nearly had to pull over. If it's this bad just driving to work ----- Just the thought of making a long trip without my constant companion is very, very difficult. How do I drive down there without that warm body in my car? I already miss him fighting over the radio station. Plugging in his iPod and forcing me to listen to his choices until the iPod battery died. He also loaded songs I would like, Black-Bottom girls by Queen, AC/DC and KISS. Plus Save a Horse. Ride a Cowboy and RedNeck Woman. We even got a charger for the car - it didn't work - but he was working on that. So country music (with certain exceptions) didn't play all the way to San Diego for 8.5 hours. 8.5 hours because I stop and get coffee and use the restroom at various MacDonald's. The coffee keeps me awake and the restroom gets rid of the coffee. He used to sleep most of the way. Waking up to request orange juice, soda (if it was hot) and maybe food toward the end of the trip. If it was cruising around 120, I forces him awake so he could drink copious amounts of fluid. Bakesfield gets warm. But he was still there, even if sleeping. I could still see him, touch him, watch over him. Tilt his head if it bent over too much, prop him up, secure the pillow, tuck in a blanket on colder days. They play sad songs now and then on the radio as I station hop on the way to work. "You cry and I wipe away all of your tears." "In the arms of the angels" Those send me over the edge. We didn't have a memorial service per se - we had a celebration of life. He didn't leave without a lot of people being aware of it. But I miss him so badly. I stay in bed for hours in the evening. I think because I used to go to bed early and watch TV there when he was in his room watching his shows. I was near by that way - less distance in an emergency. I'd be too tired to sit up or I'd be running IVs and needed to jump and run. He had a buzzer to call me. I have now unplugged it. But there is something about driving. The joke I cannot share with him. A song I like. A song he liked. A funny song like save a horse, ride a cowboy - whose video is a riot and when it was on he'd use the buzzer to call me into his room to see it. And giggle. And going to San Diego (to paint a fence and take inventory) is going to be doubly hard. He loved the house. Interesting that in the last weeks, he had divorced himself from it. He knew. I knew. We were just not discussing him leaving. We were still fighting. I still want him back. I got to work, tears drying on my face, make up running, and saw clearly -- I was wearing one black stocking and one navy blue. Clear as glass in the sunlight. Not so obvious under fluorescents in the bathroom at work - so I left them on. When I spotted this disaster in the parking lot - I burst out laughing. John would have cracked up at that. Called me his "silly woman". Then he would have hugged me. I miss the hugs. His fingers spooling my hair around his fingers as I drove. Being able to reach out and pat his knee. I miss his laughter. |
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