Much like Mothers’ Day last month, there was a very tough day this week on top of everythign else going on. It was another of those firsts without Mom. This one is a bit different, though. We would have celebrated my parents’ 56th wedding anniversary.
They met in early 1966 and were married in 1968 just in advance of my father’s first posting in the air force. Aside from work-related reasons (Dad was a search and rescue pilot for a big chunk of his career so there were plenty of nights away during that period), they’d never really been apart.
And now they are, permanently.
I’ve lost my mother, and I’ll be dealing with that for a long time.
Dad lost the person he chose to spend his life with. They’d been together for 58 years. Since he retired from the military, he’d never been away longer than overnight for his government job, and less than once a year. Since he retired from government service in 2004, they’d been in each other’s presence more or less constantly.
I can’t even begin to imagine how he feels.
And I don’t want to. My wife and I have been together since late 1990 and married since the middle of 1995. The size of the hole one of us would leave in the other’s life isn’t something I’m able to contemplate. But it’s something that one of us is likely to deal with someday.
Just not today. Today is hard enough.
Miss you, Mom.
Be well, everyone.
Life, Writing, Weirdness 
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