old photos

my dearest Dragon, my lovely soul,

it's another Sunday. in one week and 14 hours, you will have been gone from me for 15 months. and i feel it. in my mind, on my skin, in my lungs, and where my heart used to be.

i still cry. often. i do not know if that's okay or normal, or if i am stagnating here at the realization that i am living without you. i would look at you, and at time, my love, i would never think it possible. i took so many pictures of you. from behind you all sneaky and making you pose for me. you never got used to my taking pictures. you never thought i would run out.

but 14 months and 3 weeks ago i stopped being allowed to take your picture. and no, i do not have enough. what happens when i run out of pictures of you to fiddle with and post?

you are cute. you are handsome. funny. adventurous. daring. charming. dangerous. trustworthy. mine. and i am yours.

i sulk sometimes. i know it is wrong. but when i think of the home we were planning on buying, on all our dreams that ceased to be the moment you died, it cuts me in half. our lovely old fort at the end of the Neck - we are not there. i miss us. i miss the ocean. i miss our walks. our island. the gulls. taking your picture. i miss you.
i miss your laugh. where do i go from here now that you have had to go so far ahead of me. you are out of sight but not out of mind. Lord, help me i think of you and wish things had been different. i wish you were here with me. not even in our dream house, just here with me. i am so lonely. it is often a physical pain and my only recourse is to write, or to close my eyes and fantasize of you, or go find the moon.

your serious face. i zoomed from the other room. you were reading contracts and being all working and focused and thinking. i love you mustache and beard. i miss touching them. i miss your eyes, the intensity and the joy. you have such powerful emotions. you were so articulate but your eyes, even more so.

i talk to you even though i will never hear your voice again. i tell you everything, still. this happened. i felt like that about whatever. all the little things that make up a day i still share with you. like today. that woman with the two chihuahuas turned them out again - no leashes. they snarled and circled us. pinned us against a tree. and i had our dogs' leash wrapped awkwardly around my hand. it was tight against my knuckles and when Carmen and Scootie tried to protect me and each other, it crushed my knuckles. hurt really bad. not big deal. iced it and then went back to sewing, but it would not have happened if you were here. you would have reached over and picked her dogs up by the scruff of their necks and probably done something outrageous like head for the trash can. you would never hurt the dogs, but you would have made your point. or you would have our dogs tight in your own solid hand, strong, safe. you would not have gotten pinned against a tree.

just stupid stuff like that that upsets me now that i am alone - now that you aren't here anymore. nothing is horribly wrong but nothing is right, not without you.

i miss our adventures. i miss our walks. it is 2:233 PM here on the east coast. Mass would be long over. we would returned home to have had our usual languid morning together. then lunch and we'd pack up for the afternoon. we'd be on the rocks. the beach. collecting all the miracles that can be found at the ocean's edge. i miss the roar. i miss the gulls. i miss the salty smell. i miss the wind. i miss the utter freedom that comes from being with you.

safe yet wildly exciting. every day was grand. every day was filled with love. even the bad times had the grace of your love and care for me. in all our years together we had two fights. two. and being the man and therefore being wrong, you admitted you were wrong. i am trying for humor but i failed in making myself smile. because i miss you so much.

i miss our life. i miss your love. i miss your being here with me so i could talk to you, tease you, and touch you.

i am running out of pictures that show you in all your worthiness to be put online. the others are either missed shots (that i am keeping regardless) or shots where you have made a funny face and those are for me alone. silly man. playful. fun.

it is hurting so bad to think that these can almost be called "old photos."

you are now free from this life we shared. i wish i could have gone with you. i wish you could have stayed longer. but i do imagine you free and wild, your spirit so joyously happy. i know how adventurous you are. you must be having a glorious time.

i am lonely for you. i need .......... whatever. it does not matter. i cannot have what i want and there is no one to call to come over to talk to me. so i crawl away and get back to work.

two souls separated. one is free. one is earthbound. i pray you remember me. i pray that one day we are together again. off on another adventure.

and i will not need pictures anymore because nothing will separate us ever again.

23 and 56

a man my Dragon served with in the Marines had several photos of him during the handful of years they knew each other after Vietnam. my Dragon had been back from his third and final tour of duty and was a senior in college when this picture was taken. he was 23 years old.

the other one is when he was 56 years old. i see the man i know in the face of the younger man i didn't get to meet.

it's been very painful to see these pictures but i'd rather be holding them and crying than not have them.

8 months tonight. i have a pain on or in my chest that is crushing me. i can't focus on anything, not music, not a television show. nothing holds my attention. i've stabbed myself with the needle so many times as full on dark approached that i had to stop working. i've worked from 7 AM until 8 PM on this quilt. i will have it finished for the meeting Thursday night to give it to the widow who has been waiting for it.

once it's done, i'm taking 5 minutes for myself to hold my own quilt that i haven't worked on since July. i just want to touch it. i want to bring his jeans to my face and see if i can still smell the salt air on them. close my eyes and try to bring forth what it felt like to be in his arms.

i'm tired and my hands hurt. my ears are ringing and i can't breathe for the crying. i wish i'd been allowed to have him for just a bit longer. he has such a beautiful soul. he made me feel important. cherished. loved. at least one person knew where i was every minute of the day. if i went for a walk alone, someone was waiting for me. i was anticipated and expected. someone would get lonely for my company.

i love him. i miss him. i talk to him all the time. i'm so lonely without him. my heart is broken.

old photos, old fears

i cleaned out a closet looking for something and i found a few old rolls of 35 mm. i got them processed and put on a CD. it was a lot of photos of my Dragon before he grew his beard for me and his hair turned the color of moonlight. they are old enough to be grainy. i used to like to shoot black and white. something pure about it. now i shoot digital and can convert to black and white but i will always keep my old camera and shoot the occasional roll.

i stayed up late, even for me, looking through the photos, each one of him when we were dating and shortly after our wedding. they brought back such a flood of sadness over the man i lost.

i have to admit it. let me stand up and say, "hello. i'm womanNshadows. i fell off the wagon. i went to that place. i sat with my big vice, an anemic Shirley Temple - 7up and grenadine, no cherry - and i wept over the past. i cried over things i cannot change. i have no courage for anything even remotely big to come along that i may need to change. and i am all out of wisdom or i would have tried to find, at the very least, a cherry substitute."

i want him back. we all say it. we all think it. we want our spouses back. i personally want it to be like it never happened. a long, bad dream. i want to be right back on my wedding day looking at him looking at me. i want my Dragon to come walking down the road towards me with his big dopey dog that looked ferocious but would cower and point his huge paw at the china cabinet. i to see that smile when he realizes i'm taking his picture and hear him laugh at me. "don't you have enough pictures of me?" no, there can never be enough and now there never will be another one. these last few rolls are all that's left.

i sobbed until my head ached and i asked myself why am i torturing myself? he would be so pissed at me for sitting there like that. no, he would be heartbroken that his death has caused me such intense pain. i am in mourning and he knows how much i love him, adore him, and he knows it will always be mourning for me, even at night. he would sit beside me and stroke my bowed head shaking with sobs. he would rub my back and tell me not to go on so. he'd try to tell me that he would watch over me but i can't hear him. is it because he can't find me? is he searching all over Cape Ann for me, calling out in a voice that blends in with the cry of the gulls then waiting to hear if i reply?

he's the Dragon. i have to tell myself he knows where i am or i'll go crazy. he can track anyone. it was part of his job. so i have to keep telling myself he can find me here. but i hope he's not looking. sometimes i wish he would visit for just one brief moment to let me know he's all right, but i sincerely pray he's waiting for me in Heaven. and i sincerely hope God let's me spend eternity with him because i can't bear the thought that that brief time was all i am going to be allowed to have.