You're Everywhere

You’re really in everything.  The memory of you is immersed in nearly all the things I have to do in the course of a day. 

The wind chime from your funeral hangs in my flower bed, I love hearing it sing in the wind.  The picture of our family on the beach by the waves is the background of my iPad.  Your advice is embedded in my actions.  Much of the jewelry I wear was a gift from you or used to belong to you.  A coworker brought me fresh-picked flowers for my desk today-- I have a vase from your flower shop in my drawer and I lovingly arranged them in it. 

Dad and I went to your old house yesterday, the renting tenant had moved out. I couldn’t see an empty house ready for another renter, I saw it full of oversized furniture, pictures, and decorations.  My mind’s eye saw Bailey, dad, and I spending time there with you watching sports or rendezvousing as a layover if one of us had a school event.  I could smell dinner cooking in your kitchen.  I walked out onto the back deck and closed my eyes and saw your patio furniture, the hanging planters, the umbrella in your outside table.  I heard our voices and remembered the smiles.

All I have are the memories—which are bright and cheery.  Sometimes I forget how much of my childhood you were around for—since I was 13, really.  I’m lucky, and I know that… some people don’t get the happy step-parent experience… but you were everything we never knew we needed as a family and so much more.  Sometimes I feel like I took it for granted, and I regret that so much because in hindsight I know it was the best thing ever. 

The pain is brutal—it hits me when I come to terms with the fact that it’s all gone.  Not the decorations or the plants or the furniture, but the warmth and love and everything that is tangibly YOU is gone until we see you again.  I’m having a hard time focusing on “fondly remembering” without getting tangled in the bitter resentment over losing you.  Someday I hope to reach into the back of my mind and pull out a memory without ending up in tears.  I don’t know if I’ll ever stop questioning why you’re gone, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop wondering what we’d be doing if you were still here.