My heart is full, even overflowing with the memories of love my husband lavished on me in creative ways.

I share myself, my experiences, because I am a writer, observer, but what is even more important is the realization I am a participator in this thing we call life.  I have always been a participator, a documentarian through my words.  I’m rarely at a loss for them, especially during the past twelve days.

TWELVE DAYS?  It feels like an eternity already.  I have done more in the past two weeks than I have done in years.  I am writing a lot, not all of it is public, but all will be...to be told once filtered through  green eyes that have seen less than two weeks without him by my side.

By my side...literally and figuratively for so long;  just under half of my life, by only days on the calendar.  I suppose it is why some people expect “widows” to wear black and mourn for...exactly how long is it? They would dare ascribe a spoken or unspoken time-frame on how I should or should not be.    

They couldn’t possibly understand the non-stop adrenaline rush, the highs, the lows and the toll it takes on your very being.  I feel as though I am a deer caught in the headlights of death.  Yet even while frozen in the moment, all around me is whizzing by.  I understand now.  I make a bubble of positivity around me, to protect me.  It’s nothing more than a defense mechanism, but the one I think will cloak me best against the swirling vortex of negativity which has tried to burst my bubble.  Hey...not going to happen losers.  Back off.

My husband came home on Saturday, delivered in a fancy, sage green paper shopping bag, probably inscribed with some impressive looking golden logo (I’m not sure, I didn’t pay attention). Inside the bag was a non-descript gray...ironically looking like a miniature file cabinet, box. It struck me; my superman came home in a gray suit.  No cape though.   Handed over to me like it was a gift.  In my head I heard him say, “Hi Honey, I’m home.”  He was but weirdly so.  You see his mother wanted a piece of him.  My sister-in-law wanted a piece of him, all wrapped in shiny brass engraved small boxes. I got what was left.  I like to think it was his heart, and soul, every last bit of it.  I know why they wanted some, it’s just hard to know he was split up.  But then I realized I would be doing it myself.  One part in the garden where he loved to sun himself, one part in the shade under the tree outside my bedroom (so I could visit during daytime with my sun allergy and all), and then I was planning to drop a few in the Caribbean on our cruise..and in... gulp...the Panama Canal.  I understood even more now.

However by four o’clock on Monday I had lost him.  Yes, earlier in the day, during a mad frenzy of cleaning because of a door that had opened, I took him from of his temporary place on the mantle and put him somewhere not so, well, in your face.  

After a whirl of excitement (caused by an effort to honor him in a way he would adore and approve of) I couldn’t remember where I placed him.  Now what?  The thoughts running through my mind. How can I scatter his ashes now?  How can I explain this to his family?  

Think back.  I remember I contemplated putting him in my newly unlocked safe.  The same one I had begged him to get a locksmith to open for two plus years.  There wasn’t anything of huge importance in there because I anticipated the eventual problem.  But still two plus years was a bit much.  I had it opened on Saturday.  Okay, putting him in the safe was out, besides being dark and confined it was little.  Nope.  

Then I blanked.  Maybe...the armoire, where I could “hide” the things and close the door.  No, he hated messes.  I looked anyway.  Not there.

Then I thought of our closet.  Our split-down the middle closet.  His side customized for his control in the wheelchair, mine not so important when you can walk you know?  I smiled.  Yep, that’s where he would be.  I got the key and unlocked the door, flipped on the light and was greeted by many more things reminding me of him...the things I will not detail to protect dignity...but more than that was his clothing.  The shirt cubbyholes were filled with his chosen fabrics carefully cleaned and in the dry cleaner’s plastic bags with cardboard collars...the stacked sweaters, the rack of his suits and sports coats made perfectly  for the raconteur and bon vivant he was...I didn’t see the dull gray box.  I sigh.  

“Hoh---ney.  Where are you?  Come on out!”  I say aloud smiling, in my best “I Love Lucy” style voice.  He was my Ricky Ricardo, I was his Lucy.  I got down on my knees to look for him underneath his hanging clothes...maybe on the floor?   I pulled back a few sports coats...then his black velvet smoking jacket hanging next to his green one that he wore only on Christmas Night with the black and green Glen Plaid tuxedo pants....yep, there he was; cloaked in one small, dull gray “suit” clothing my baby, hidden away underneath his tuxedo jackets.  Exactly where he felt so comfortable.  I know he was laughing with me as I carried him back to the mantle, now to ironically to be hidden from my sight by the big plasma television he so loved.

I push the red power button on the remote.

“You Donkey!”  

Why...is that the “Hell’s Kitchen?”  A-h-h-h he loved Chef Ramsey.  FLIP.  

“André Ethier is up next...”  Yep.  Now I feel sort of normal. The sound of the clickety-clack of my nails hitting the laptop’s keys, reassuring, if not downright normal.