Old Letters

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
~Anonymous


More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
~John Donne


Well, I put my mind to it and got most of it done today.

The closet is emptied of all of his personal belongings. So is the dresser. Now I have a couple of stacks of storage tubs and cardboard boxes in my bedroom. They will probably sit there for awhile. At least until I find room in the attic to store them. Or until I sift through them again and narrow the "keepers" down to a more manageable quantity.

He didn't have tons of personal stuff. When he was sick, he talked a little about what items he could give to others. He drew a blank most of the time. Maybe, eventually, I will pass on a couple of his favorite shirts to his closest family members...if they'd like one. Right now, I need to be selfish with his things.

There were a few times the task got to be overwhelming. Whenever I started feeling like it would be best to wash everything and hang it back up, I would sit and take a break. (Because if I had washed everything and hung it back up, I would even start to question my sanity!) During one of my breaks, I pulled the steel box that he always kept all of his old coins and a few other cherished items off of the closet shelf. I sat down on the bed to go through it once again. I've already been through it a few times since he died. But this time, I looked at some of the items more closely.

His birth certificate was in there. And a couple of cards his mother made for him last summer. And a few letters I wrote to him after he got arrested last summer. I wrote one of them while he was in jail for the weekend. I wrote a couple others when he stayed at his mother's house...when the "No Contact Order" was in place. I was amazed at the similarities in the circumstances now...and then. I could only shake my head in astonishment. And I kept thinking to myself it was as if that experience was some sort of trial run...some sort of primer...practice...for my life now.

Here are some excerpts from those letters:

I just woke up. I slept for about an hour and a half, I guess. It's 4:00 now. I thought I'd wake up feeling better. Instead, I started crying 5 minutes after I got up because I can't call you. I feel like I should just try to go back to sleep until I have to go to work. What a life. I keep worrying that you must be bored -- and lonely. Are you doing okay?

. . . . .

I just need to be with you. I can't do this for 2 more weeks or even longer. I know I don't have a choice.

. . . . .

Hi! I miss you -- I love you! I don't know about you, but my emotions are all over the place. I go from being angry one minute to feeling like everything will work out okay. And then I mostly just get sad. God, Chuck, I am so sad. I break down and cry so many times during the day. I feel like I can't even BREATHE without you. I would do anything in the world to make this all go away. I feel like I want to die. I am just putting one foot in front of the other. So it feels like I'm not really living anyways. I can hardly eat. I puke when I try to. I can't watch tv. I can't play games on the computer. I have a hard time delivering my route because I can't concentrate. I can't pay attention to the dogs or the kids. I am just a miserable f$%#ing mess. Even when I sleep, this is all I dream about.

. . . . .

I miss you so much. I miss holding you and touching you. It kills me to hear your voice and not be able to talk to you. I miss the way you make me laugh with your one-liners!
When all of this is over (yes, I know it will be eventually) I never want to spend one more night away from you. I swear to you -- I will NEVER EVER take you for granted. I will appreciate having you as my husband each and every day. Even when we disagree, I will still appreciate the fact that, at the end of the day, we still have each other. I mean that!

. . . . .

This just doesn't seem fair. I feel like I've been widowed over night. I love you and I miss you and I'm really upset. I'm upset at myself and I'm upset at every little circumstance that led up to this mess. Right now it doesn't seem like it will ever be over.

. . . . .

I just want to remind you to keep your chin up. We will have our life back soon! And I believe it will be better than it was before. Do you know why? I've always known I love you without a doubt. But this whole thing has made me realize that I love you even more than I thought possible. These people that are trying to destroy us??? Well, they are only making us stronger! Nobody will ever again try to keep me from you. Once I have you back, I will never spend another night without you by my side until the day one of us dies. That's a promise! Just remember -- the sacrifices we have to make right now are a small price to pay to have the whole rest of our life together! We are going to be just fine -- together!

. . . . .

It's just so strange how I wrote those things only about 5 months before he died. It's the first time I read those letters since I wrote them.

Some things I said are pretty ironic, aren't they?

After reading the letters, I continued to go through the rest of the stuff in that box. I found a pocket watch. It was the one I gave him on one of our first Christmas' together. That thing quit working a long time ago but he always kept it. Tucked away. In that steel box. I decided to open it for the first time in many years. Guess what time that watch stopped at? 4:06. 4-freaking-06! Unbelievable. (If you don't know the significance of that number, it was his old clock number when he worked at Midas. It was the number that always seemed to come up for him. He noticed it so often that he always said he should play it in the daily lottery.)

At first I was shocked. I just shook my head. And then it gave me goosebumps. After that it gave me a little smile. I normally wouldn't have opened that watch. I guess I waited for the right moment to do it. Right when I needed it most. Right after I had been questioning whether I was really ready to pack everything up. Right when I considered washing everything and putting it back where it belongs.

It gave me the strength to continue. It gave me the strength to finish. And it gave me a sense of peace like you wouldn't believe.

It's odd how many moments of peace I've gotten from random "coincidences". Ever since that very first day with the deer and the two pennies.

Maybe these "coincidences" aren't so random after all?