On a not-a-cloud-in-the-sky Monday, Don and I took a walk on the Rail Trail.
There is such beauty in the stark landscape of winter.
A splash of red berries against the browns and grays.
It felt good to be walking in the woods with my sweetie.
We, like everyone else I suppose, tend to get in a rut. Don works until late in the evening and I’m usually asleep before he gets home. I rise early. If we just let the time go by, Don doing his thing, me doing mine, before you know it, it’s time for him to leave for work and then our little window of opportunity is gone. We’re going to make a concerted effort to change that.
Yesterday we talked of camping, the smells of the forest, childhood memories, being a camp counselor, lashing together a lean-to. You know, the kind of exchange that doesn’t happen on just any old day. It was special and we need those special times together.
Then last night, I spoke with my dad. After our usual early evening conversation, he called me back. He’s so sad nowadays as he watches my mother drift away. He wanted – needed – to share some memories. Good memories. And some of them were of our family camping trips, days at the lake, driving us back to our respective colleges after a weekend at home. He talked about having very little money when my brother and I were kids. I assured him I never felt deprived. And that he was and is a good father. I’m crying as I write this, because my heart was touched so deeply by his need to talk about happy memories. His days now are about visiting my mother, hoping she might feel like talking, hoping to catch a glimpse of the wife he once knew. He’s devoted to her. He takes her magazines, and plays her favorite music, sometimes just sits there as she sleeps, holding her hand. Such sadness nowadays.
Don and I have been together over 17 years. My parents have been together 66 years. I don’t know how I would feel if I felt Don slipping away from me. I can only imagine the heartbreak, the realization that the end of our days together was near. How my parents, together so many years, can even begin to face this is beyond me.
Sometimes life is so beautiful. Sometimes it is absolutely heartbreaking. All in the course of one February day.
