I can’t believe he actually came back — all my tears and fears and doubts. I can’t and don’t even try to stop my tears. The words are in my head but I can’t seem to say them. When he comes close and pulls me tight to his body, I can’t tell if my sobs are from happiness or fear it is all a dream.
“Micky, talk to me. I’m sorry. I can’t live without you. Can you still love me?”
I wipe my face with just a hand, I must look a mess. “Yes, I never stopped loving you. I’m sorry if I did something to turn you away.”
“Baby, you never did anything. I just let other people lead me astray. They may have meant well, but I don’t want to live my life without you. That’s the bottom line, you make me feel whole — it’s love. If anything can be called love, what I feel right now is it. I’d really like us to start again and this time we won’t listen to what anyone else has to say about it. Be that my parents or your parents — or even President Nixon!”
His words sound like the ones in my dreams, but his warmth next to mine is real. “I wanted to call you, but never built up enough nerve. I’ve even day dreamed about a moment much like this where you come back to me — even now it seems like a dream.”
“It’s no dream Micky. And you were never to blame — it was all on me, and I was stupid. It’s that simple. If it’s not too soon, I’d like you to know that I wanted to ask you to marry me. I let other people influence my better judgement about that. Now I’m asking. Will you marry me? My mother told me not to rush you or push you too fast. What do you think about getting married next Valentine’s Day? That gives us a year where we can wrap up our studies — but it’ll also give us plenty of time for us both to be sure this is what we want. It gives us all year to do things together — and to be together. It sorta makes sense you know? We really do need to get to know each other more in a lot of ways.”
It’s the words I’ve played in my dreams for so long — so many nights thinking of our life together. But always my reality closed the curtains on my perfect play. But now he’s asking for real …. “Yes, I heard those words in my dreams — you are real, yes?”
“Sweet Mickey, my sweet Mickey, feel my lips on yours and you’ll know I’m real.” We meld into one again — how close I came to loosing her. Never again will anything get between our love … never.
*****
Scene Nine: Valentine’s day Feb 14, 2022
Before our two daughters show up to spend Valentine’s Day with me, I sit and replay the life Micky and I shared in the 48 years we were married. But I always count that year of engagement, so to me it’s a shared life for 49 years. She passed this year, two weeks before Valentine’s day — one more year and it would have been our fiftieth Valentine’s Day together. When we met we were both just kids really. Back then twenty-two seemed old, but in hindsight we were just getting old enough to not be completely stupid. At least my stupid took a pause long enough for me to ask her to marry me. We had so many good years, but her broken body kept breaking a little more every year, especially these last several years. Seems ironic it had little to nothing to do with the Polio everyone was so worried about — mostly just old age. I always wanted it to be me who got out first, but I guess the good Lord figured she needed me to stick around. I promised I’d take care of her and I guess I did the best I could. The breast cancer, even though it was caught in time, still took a heavy toll. The radiation and the pills saved her life and gave her more years, but also weakened her and made her sick in other ways — worst of all was the lingering cloud over our heads that the cancer might come back. Thankfully it never did — she’d suffered enough already. Then the Polio she was attacked by as a child threw in it’s last kick. All she could do for the most part was rest in bed. I still wonder if things got worse because the other health problems kept her immobile in bed too much — the doctor said it could be, but we’d never really know.
At seventy-seven, we both knew we’d been blessed beyond what we might have deserved — at least, speaking for myself; I know I was blessed by her being in my life. She said the same to me almost every day. Right now, I’m adrift. To be honest, I don’t care if I die tonight. Some say it gets better with time … I say, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. How can it get better after being the best it could ever be in the first place? There’s no replacing the love we built and shared together. I won’t even think about it, much less pursue such folly. No, what I’ll do is replay every memory I have left of her and even that is getting harder. As the days turn into years, it seems little scraps and bits of those memories are fading and sometimes get lost in a blank darkness. It’s my greatest fear; that one day I might not even have my memories of our lives together. Isn’t that a description of hell — a living hell?
But while I can remember, I’m gonna write these memories down. I’ll write about everything I can remember — that first night — that time I almost lost the love of my life because of stupidity and listening to other people’s advice instead of my own heart. And Mom was right, that year really did solidify what Micky and I had together. I’ll write about the wedding in the Catholic Church down in Farmington where all of her family lived. I’ll write about the big barbecue her folks put on after the priest pronounced us man and wife till death do we part. I’ll write about every childbirth — I just wish I’d started writing sooner when the memories were crisp and fresh.
Then I’ll read my same romance novel over and over until my tears run dry and these old eyes go dark. There’s no way to explain love to someone who’s never known true love — a love where the saying that ‘the two become one’ is a reality, not just a saying. So here I sit, the box from the shelf in our closet open in front of me. She kept the first Valentine’s day card I gave her — including the scratched out name of that silly girl so long ago … and Michelle’s name hastily scribbled in it’s place. I’m gonna read every one of them again, both mine to her and the ones she gave me every year. Seems a silly custom on a casual glance at the box full of cards — and I’m sure that for some people a card is no more than wasted paper. But not these cards. These cards are my lifeline right now. These cards were treasured by the one person I ever treasured more than anyone or anything.
We lived our lives here in the Durango area. Like all old people, we complained about the rapid growth from our days to now. I know it’s happening everywhere, but it hurts when all the secret places she and I knew in our lives together are overrun. But deeper down, I know it’s all a wild and wonderful discovery to those young ones who are just like Micky and I were for our whole life together — roaming around the back roads, taking risks I wouldn’t take today. Making love under the stars on a clear summer night in a small grove of Aspens — the leaves fluttering in a light breeze making it seem that the millions of stars above us are blinking on and off as we lay together as naked as the first man and the first woman on Earth. And what about those other times hunkering down in fear as the thunderstorm grows, the wind trying to rip our tent from the ground and the thunder sounds like a stick of dynamite just on the other side of the tent’s thin cloth. All I can do is be thankful for all we had and all that we experienced for the time we had allotted to us. I guess that I should stop now — I need to go into town and pick out my Valentine’s Day card for her before all the kids and grand-kids show-up. I figure Micky’s watching me … I want her to know that she’s still my only Valentine — my one and only love. ~