10 Years Tomorrow

In March 2004, I wrote a story for my previous email group, Cinnamon and Flowers, that was a sort of dedication to my grandparents' love on the 6th anniversary of my grandfather's death. As we reach 10 years without Pap, I thought it would be fitting to re-post the article I wrote on the same day four years ago. I'll love you always, Gram and Pap! --C
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Six Years Tomorrow
March 8, 2004

She stares at his picture every night at 9:30, when the trees are still arching their backs like young girls in a pinnacle moment. She's saying goodnight to the first and only man who gave her a pinnacle moment.

Tracing the familiar outline of his face, even through a photograph, he still makes her heart hold itself briefly when she looks at him.

"I could search the whole world over and never find another Jess," she said.

Steadily and simply, she returns the portrait of her late husband to its home on her nightstand, letting her fingers fall back to grasp emptiness--the same emptiness that has occupied the "other half of the bed" for the past six years.

It's easy to imagine her laying there at night, her own arm draped over the arch of her hip instead of the known touch of the man she was married to for more than five decades.

Sleep is only one thing that is different without him. Laundry loads are lighter, holidays are quieter, and the TV is only on for background noise.

"Even dinner tastes different sometimes after you shared it with the same person for so long," she said.

So long is "52 years and 18 months. We dated for 18 months before he asked my daddy's persmission to marry me.

"He said we were going in the jewelry store because he wanted to buy me a string of pearls, but I knew what he was really up to, " she said, smiling the same girlish grin she must have worn the day he added a ring to her outfit.

Jess was the one in uniform though, as an army sergeant stationed in Europe during WWII. It was during his six-year stay there that he met Matilda Dargie--a Scottish-born girl without a middle name, a girl who loved to dance.

"When I was with him I forgot altogether about the war or why I was working in a factory [to help build airplanes]. We just went to dances and visited the English countryside when he was off. He was my sweetie."

There is no doubt their story is her favorite to tell, and that her memories provide comfort and laughter through yet another time of global disharmony.

"Oh my goodness, and I was wearing these pink rain boots and one of those, you know, Betty Crocker dresses when I met him while he was proper in his soldier's uniform," she said. "And oh my how he hated to dance. I tell you I don't know how he put up with me. A waltzing Matilda...I really was!"

But he would only know her as his "Tilly", and he came to love her as a beautiful lady, his dutiful wife and mother of their five children.

In the quiet moments she has now without him, she is reminded of the placidity they shared for four years before they had their first child. She remembers the nights when it was just the two of them, planning which house they would make a home or, more commonly, what she would make for supper the next day.

"My Jess was good to me," she said, making it clear that when she was one with him she somehow felt closer to herself.

Then babies made seven, dinners got bigger, housecleaning took longer and money grew thinner.

"And can you believe out of all those years we only had two fights," she said. "Couples today seem to fight all the time...and over problems that would've been luxuries to us then. I know there were two, but I only remember one of them."

She was 9 months pregnant, due any day, with their fifth child, and he wanted to travel four hours north for a fishing trip. Ironically, she was also frying fish when he announced plans of his forthcoming sojourn.

As family legend has it, it didn't take long for her to swing around with her delicate, 5'9", 130 lb. frame (and that was pregnant) to hurl a cast-iron skillet toward him and promise, "This is the only fish you're going to have."

And it certainly was.

"I made sure it didn't hit him though," she laughed, making sure the whole world knew hurting him was always the last thing she would ever do.

"We had such a great time together, even when we had our two fights. Being married to Jess, our life together, the family we created, was just the best part of my 80 years. I tell you I can't believe it'll be six years tomorrow. It doesn't feel that long. But I guess it's true that a part of a person stays with you even after they pass on.

"Who could forget him though? He was such a character," she said, as rainwater and melting snow burst from a stormdrain outside.

Good thing she still has those pink rainboots.