Always Make a Travel List

Dear John,

It's been four months since you left and unaccountably failed to take me with you. (I know - you KNEW you forgot something!) I'm adjusting to being here without you. That's not to say that I like it at all, but I'm adjusting. I handle it because I know it's temporary - I can't imagine how people survive that don't have that assurance.

I know that if I'm here without you then you're there without me, and I hope it isn't difficult for you. I have no idea what being there is like, except that it's better that being here. I can imagine how much better it is for you, since you're finally healed and healthy. It also helps me to handle separation by knowing that you're not suffering. Everything had been hard for you since you had myocarditis a few years ago. Your third round of cancer didn't help, and those last three months in the hospital (various hospitals!) must have been so hard. But you never showed irritability or self-pity - much as you were entitled to both. It's no wonder everybody loved you so much. (And remember, I'm not biased at all.) I've always admired and respected, as well as loved, you, and never more than those last three months. I hope you knew how proud I am of you. I know you knew how much I love you.

The present tense is deliberate there - I still love you just as much, and I always will. The two became one flesh, this egg is well-scrambled, and there's still no separating out what's me and what's you. Thank you for that - for 34 wonderful years, for asking me to marry you, for taking me to that first football game, for sitting in the dorm lobby that Sunday afternoon discussing the theology of the Trinity with me for two hours. For being the man that I love more than life. (HOW could you forget to take me with you?)

Coming as soon as I can,

Joan.