A Couple of Three

Sweetie,

The house is still empty without you. I moved, but I brought your absence with me. It follows me everywhere I go. I can see where we lived from my patio, and even walking past it reminds me again that you’re not here.

You’d like the new place, except for the two steps up from the sidewalk. They’re even hard for me to get up these days. Otherwise, it’s nice. I got rid of some things to fit everything in, but Bob’s chair and ottoman are in the living room. They look really nice.

You’d be happy.

I have your art on the walls, even though I haven’t finished unpacking yet. I got sidelined by my own health problems. The study is still a mess of boxes strewn everywhere. I’m going to try to unpack 2 more this weekend.

When I told Crystal that I was moving, she said “No! You good customer.” She was visibly relieved when I told her I was only moving a few feet away and would still be bringing her my dry cleaning. She gave me a calendar that I don’t use.

I never seem to know what day of the week or date it is. That hasn’t changed. I always relied on you for that information. As well as when bills were due.

Lucy still looks like a sausage stuffed into a tabby’s body. Only bigger. She’s as demanding as ever, and still hasn’t learned that I can’t turn off the cold or rainy weather. Or be home all day with her.

Amanda still spends most of her days curled up on the bed, the perfect kitty comma. She stays on you side more often than not. I don’t know if she can still smell you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were so.

I miss you most on the weekends. I’m home by myself with the cats. They haven’t changed: as demanding and spoiled as they way you left them.

They’re your fault.

I officially have high blood pressure, and when I told the doc that I’ve had a lot anxiety and stress over the last year or so, he asked me the question that I’m sure you got asked over and over: “Do you ever think about harming yourself or others”. I told him “No.”

If I had been thinking, I would have said “Yes. The person in front of me at the grocery who’s holding up the line over $3. Good thing I don’t like guns.

The doc was just doing his job, and I told him that I knew what depression was, and I wasn’t there. That I was profoundly sad, but not clinically depressed. I’ve been depressed, and I know what it tastes like.

Still, I miss you. Fiercely.

You’d be proud of me. I’m actually seeing doctors to take care of physical problems. I didn’t really take care of myself because I spent my time taking care of you and didn’t worry about me so much.

I never knew how frustrating it is to have to use a cane. It monopolizes one of my two hands. I can’t seem to get it propped up right when I need to use both hands. It’s life with one hand.

And I have a new-found appreciation of how awful nerve pain is. Sometimes the loose change in my pocket irritates the hell out of my leg. The burning has pretty much gone away since I got the cortisone injection, but my thigh is still mostly numb.

I’m doing what I need to, though. I have another MRI next week (this time on my hip), a follow-up with the pain doctor and another with the bone doctor after he’s seen the MRI. I’m sure that’s not the last of these appointments.

As I said, you’d be proud. And amazed. I’ve cost Aetna thousands and thousands of dollars, but much less than they’ve received for me over the years.

And M. is very supportive. I’ve taken more sick time for doctors’ appointments over the last month than I’ve taken since I had strep. I actually took a full day off because I hurt so much that I could barely get out of bed.

I miss you every day. I miss your cackle. Someone called your laugh “robust”, but it was a cackle, like a hen laying an egg. You were always a sucker for a throw-away line. I threw them out as often as possible just to hear it.

I miss you. All of you. Even the crazy parts. I didn’t love you in spite of the crazy: I loved you knowing that the crazy was there. I loved and continue to love you because of the man you were.

Say “Hi” to Rich for me, and tell him that I love him, too. Tell him that Sweet Pea loves him and misses him. He’ll know what that means.

I’ll see you both on the other side.

In the mean time, the two of you can talk about wood and argue about how to properly finish it. Get it out of your system, because I don’t want to spend eternity with the two of you bickering over that kind of stuff.

Visit when you want. But I won’t be long getting there in the grand scheme of things. And when I do, we’ll make a nice couple, the three of us.