Remembering...

Four years... how quickly they seem to have passed. On this day, four years ago, my entire life was about to change in ways I could not imagine. Something would happen that I truly believed in my heart and soul that I myself would never see. After a long night of sleeplessness, I took my Sheila to the emergency room. Our doctor did all she could to make Sheila comfortable. Morphine was given freely. Hushed chatter was going on in the corner of the room. Still... my mind did Not go where I think so many other minds might have gone. Holding her hand tightly, I looked up at her Doctor. "I am going to send her to Mason City. I can not do anything more here, Darrel." Still, I simply nodded and got ready for the trip to Mason City Hospital as I had done more times then I could remember, over the past 24 years.
In Mason City, we waited for doctors to decide what they were going to do. Hour after hour went by and Sheila and I did what we had always done. We talked in between her drifting in and out from the medications they gave her to keep her from hurting. We talked about nothing and everything. There was no need to talk about anything final because I never, ever had allowed myself to believe that anything other than her getting better and coming home would happen. My faith and belief in God to watch over her was as it always had been. Total and un-wavering.It is how we lived our lives since she had gotten ill, one year after she and I were married. The strongest, most beautiful lady in the world was laying in front of me and I simply waited for the Doctors to say "Take her home... she will be fine."
Four years... It seems like a forever ago sometimes and yet, today, it seems like yesterday. It all comes rushing back to me and I realize that though I have now continued my life and have my family to finish out my life with, Sheila is Still so much a part of everything I have done with my life.
I live with the memories of her beautiful love and her smile that always said "It will be fine, good looking." I remember kissing her as she was wheeled into the operating room at 1a.m., on a windy but promising early morning. I remember seeing all the signs that Spring was peeking it's head in after a long cold winter. Leaves danced around my feet and swirled into the air, like a cat chasing it's own tail. A light jacket was all I needed to step outside and grab a quick smoke. And I remember NOT ever thinking that in an hour or so, Doctors would come to tell me she was going up to recovery and I could see her soon. I see myself, falling to the floor, begging through uncontrolled tears for the surgeon to tell me she was o.k. Asking him if he was sure about what he had just told me! I was certain that he must be wrong! She Always got better... Always. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four years ago tomorrow, my whole world changed. Life as I knew it would never be the same. My daughter and I would get things together for the memorial. Plants and flowers and cards and people would fill our lives for the next little while. And when it was quiet, we would try to figure out what it was we were supposed to do now. I would begin a journey that would take me through the walk of "If I had taken a moment to think "What if...?" If I had thought for a second that maybe, just maybe, God was going to take away her pain and suffering forever by taking her to heaven to be with him. I live not with things said, but with the words that were Not said. I only said "I love you, forever." Was it enough? Did I show her for ever that I Would love her? Did she know that there was no one in the world that could take me away from her? Does she know that now? I have so much to tell her. I have so much to show her. IS she happy that I have finally moved forward and that love and life are mine to hold again? So many things I would have said and done if I had known that she would Not come home ever again. Can I tell her now???????????????
"I love you, My Sheila. I will always love you. Though life and love have found their way into my heart and life, You are and will Always be my First true love. The memories that are private and only yours and mine will live on forever in my soul. The tears I cry are bitter-sweet. They are for the Love that I was so blessed with for 24 years. They are for the moment you left this world and I realized that nothing would ever look the same in these eyes again. That Spring would burst forth as it always has, and yet... it would not ever feel as it did when you were here. A new Spring is coming. New life and new memories are going to hang on my wall. Laughter and smiles and discoveries will be plentiful. And You, my love, will watch them happen from heaven. Today, tomorrow and forever I love you, And I Miss you as I know I always will. {Just feel it...}"
I write today for memories and the beauty that was my Sheila. And I write for the therapy that it is to my soul. Thank you, to who ever reads this, for being patient and understanding. March 8Th, 2006... my world got a little smaller.