Five years

This is the person I always perceived (she’s about 25). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“A punch in the gut. Takes the wind outta your sails.”
So says my neighbor up-the-street, who also lost his wife to cancer.
Today’s the day.
On April 17th, 2012, my beloved wife of 44+ years died of cancer.
I’ve said it hundreds of times: she was the best friend I ever had; she actually liked me.
I had a difficult childhood. My parents, and others, convinced me I was rebellious and stupid. I suppose mainly because I couldn’t worship my hyper-religious father as worthy of the right hand of Jesus.
When I finally went to college, it was a revelation. Adult authority-figures valued and solicited my opinions.
Even my sister noticed. In college I “flowered.”
I met my wife in college. She had been “chasing” me over three years. —Although I never knew; she was very shy.
My wife also had a difficult childhood. But mainly it was her mother. She’d raised my wife to be a frump.
No one invited her to her high-school’s prom, despite her being class salutatorian. Her lot was the sidelines.
Not long ago I told her only brother I think I convinced her she wasn’t a frump.
This provoked anger from her mother. She declared we wouldn’t last a year.
44 years; I think I changed her mother’s mind.
I’m not easy to live with.
I often think my wife’s difficult childhood played in my favor. That she thought she couldn’t do any better.
So here I am at five years.
No longer sorely grief-stricken, but I still miss her immensely.
“Don’t start me crying,” I often say. All I hafta do is start thinking about her, and I tear up.
Fifty years ago I was confused and clueless, but knew enough to walk away from those I knew would never work.
Partly because of that I inadvertently ended with a really good one.
She liked me, especially the way I could make her laugh.
She liked the way I thought, or so she said. The crazy observations I came up with — always looking at things through jaundiced eyes.
This is why she “chased” me.
I often feel bad we never had any children; I knew she wanted ‘em.
But I was afraid I’d be like my father: abusive at times, but mainly distant.
I look around our house, which we both designed, and I notice little has changed. Bedspreads are still piled in the laundry-room, and bedding for her mother is still on the floor in a spare room.
Even attending my wife’s mother’s 100th birthday in FL was an act of incredible derring-do.
“Takes the wind outta yer sails.”
I’ve pretty much stayed put the last five years.