Now that he's gone, I don't know what I'll do. I cry all the time. A week ago I was an "active senior," now I'm just a pathetic old widow paralyzed with grief, waiting to die.
So many memories; so many questions. It was such a strange life we shared together - and spent apart.
We used to do something that I don't think I ever saw any other couples do. We would face away from each other and rest our heads back on the other's shoulder. Sitting upright, or leaning back, or lying in the grass looking up at the sky - we did it all the time. It felt so natural, so comfortable, so right.
My memories seem to change even as I recall them. I think that we were married to each other more than once, with other partners in between. I don't believe that we had any children - together, I mean. I feel as though I have a son somewhere and he that had a daughter or two. I don't remember their names or their faces. Do they really exist? Maybe they did, but don't now. What does that mean?
At least once, I came home and found every trace of him gone from our house. It was like he had never existed. Our friends didn't know who I was talking about - I think that I frightened them quite badly. I saw him on the beach a month later. He did not know me, but was intrigued at my story and confused that I knew details of his life that he had thought no one did. We became lovers all over again.
Another time I had moved into a loft apartment downtown. As I unpacked, I could not help but feel that something was horribly wrong; something was missing. A week later he appeared to take me back to the coast. I had walked away, not knowing why.
He watched my eyes all the time. People had always told me that they were pretty, but to him they were like magic. At first it made me nervous, how he watched them almost constantly. It was a change from the other men who mostly stared at my bust or at my hips. I even learned to accept him watching me as I read.
His eyes were grey and dappled like a field strewn with gravel, like muddy meltwater from some far-northern glacier. I can see them still sometimes - through the haze of a night club, or across a pillow. I don't think I'll live until Sunday.
Sometimes I picture his eyes and see the reflection of my own in them. I see my pointy little nose and oversquare jaw through a sort of golden haze. I loved him dearly, but I think that he worshipped me. I watched him die and my grief will kill me in a week; I think if I had died first, he would not have lasted an hour. I never wanted to believe that, but I know it's true.