Memories

People will come and out of your life no matter what. Some of those you need, some are just fat (not physically), some you think you can't live without, but you always do. It's amazing how a romance starts. Amazing how when you meet special people everything is different. How you can feel after two days of being together, that this is the person you want to be with forever, the person you want to fight for and you won't give up for anything. Amazing how you can travel on a greyhound across country just to get to know him better, and he can move back to the other side just to be with you and help you. How you can spend weeks on a farm with his grandparents, helping prepare meals, cleaning, watching way too much of the food network, feeding mamma kitty who's going to die any day... How memories of digging holes, mixing cement, setting poles and building a fence for the too-old horse in 90 degree weather with mosquitoes swarming around you stay with you - of how good a shower felt like and meal tasted after all that work. It's amazing how these memories stay even long after there is nothing left between two people.

I got a call today from the last person who broke my heart. He had been in stage of reclusion for the past 2 years or more and has recently gotten out of it. The difference in his voice is amazing, almost like when we first met - like he has life again. He called asking me to call his grandma, who will probably not remember me or be able to talk to me a month from now. What do you say to someone?

She smoked for decades, until she was diagnosed with emphysema. But it was too late and lung cancer was already on the horizon for her.

I think about her husband. They are in their 80's and have been together since 16! She was a cashier and he started writing letters to her - and they married a couple of years later. They had their first child before 20 years of age. While he is no young pup himself, he still has a lot of good years in him - but how good? What do you do on a farm all alone? How do you deal with the memories of building the farm, and home, from scratch together, and working utnil you have the best strawberries in the state? Raising children who built a farm next door to live in while their children grew up? Children fighting over who gets to ride in the ATV next? Sandwiches on the porch? Mamma kitty's slow decline? The stained glass window from the local church? The cows which all have names and hide the new calves in the grass for days? The sign above the sink that says "I Love To Cook With Wine - Sometimes I Even Put It In The Food" that you see every time she's cooking, glass of wine in hand?

I can't imagine all those memories and the person who wrote them all with you being gone. Not on a trip, not running errands, but forever.
I'm going to call tonight, but I have no idea what to say and I'm scared. But I guess I'm not the one who anything to be scared of right now.