Weepy Tonight (or This Morning)

It is almost 1 a.m. and I am sitting in my chair watching old sitcoms and crying.

Raymond is so much on my mind tonight that my heart hurts.

Sometimes the flashes that come through are so real, but they are just flashes and I cannot grab on to them.

The other night the youngest did something silly that lasted for just a few seconds, but in that time Raymond's smile flashed through my mind and it was almost as if it formed on my face. It was if I was projecting his smile and approval onto my youngest. It was such a quick flash. I kept trying to make that smile appear again in my mind, but it was gone.

I worry all the time about things I have already forgotten. Raymond was the one that remembered everything about our dating life and our early years together. I cannot remember things like that. Oh, there are certain dates I remember, but not the way he could remember. He was our scrapbook of our life together. Now that scrapbook is gone.

There are pictures of course. Lots of pictures that Raymond could look at and tell the story behind. Me, I can only look at that back and tell you what it says on there about where we were and when. I hate that I cannot remember things like that about our early life together.

I do remember the first time I told Raymond I loved him. We had known each other for a couple of years and had dated on and off. Over the summer we had been dating pretty steady and we were going back to colleges. Raymond went to UK and I went to EKU. Raymond had taken me back to school for our senior year and was helping me set up my dorm room. He was putting together the bunk beds and the room was about 95 degrees. He was sweating so much he had to keep wiping his forehead off so he could see, the bunk beds were not going together like they were suppose to, and yet he was not complaining. I started thinking about all the things Raymond did for me without complaining. The more he banged on those beds trying to straighten out all the parts bent from years of dorm use, the more I thought about what a wonderful and special person he was. So just as he was taking a swing with the hammer I told him I loved him. He stopped and looked at me and asked me to repeat myself. I remember that moment.

I remember him sitting on a cot in my hospital room singing to our first born son "Your Cheatin' Heart." He sang that song because I love Hank Williams' songs and that was the one he knew. Raymond had a nice voice, but he did not share it very often. I remember.

I remember how he held the youngest one when we brought him home from the hospital and showed him the Christmas tree in the living room.

Yes, the most vivid of my memories of our life together are from after the boys were born. Maybe because I always wanted a family. Raymond and I together were just husband and wife, but the boys, they made us a family.

I hate that the boys do not have their father. I am thankful that they remember him. I hope they will remember him all their lives.

I hope I can hold on to all my memories of us together all my life too.