Dear Roby

 

Dear Roby,

One of your love notes made its way into my hands last night. Allie came across it in a calligraphy book you’d been practicing in and told me about it while she and I were driving to Chick Fil A to pick up some chocolate milkshakes.

“I think it will make you cry, YaYa,” she began, but I was already crying before she could finish the sentence. “I’m sure you’ll love it, though.”

She’s very intuitive for thirteen.

We got the shakes and brought them home where I asked Allie for the promised page. Which made me cry again.

“Eula,” your practice sheet was titled. “My Love. My Life. My All.” That’s all it said. It was more than enough. I placed it beside the photo of us standing arm in arm along Oak Creek in 1986—remember that itchy year when the worst thing I’d ever experienced were those chronic hives?

Perspective is a tardy teacher. But your love note arrived on time.

Yesterday was a hard day, darlin’. On a scale of 1-10 it ranked at about 97. I woke up crying, like I do every morning. Paralyzed in bed, I cried out to The God I’m Not Speaking To for help. “I have to get up,” I wept. “I have to move but I can’t do it. Please help.” He’s always listening, The God I’m Not Speaking To. I’m fairly sure He still loves me, but I can’t hear His voice most of the time because I’m having trouble trusting Him. Actually, I’ve always had that problem but it’s a lot worse now that I feel so betrayed by His decision to take you Home.

I sat up and checked my phone for texts, reached for the Kleenex because I couldn’t breathe or get up, when suddenly my phone rang. It was Sue. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was on another line when you called.”

“When did I call?” I asked, confused and stuffy-nosed.

“Just now.”

“I did?” I questioned, blowing my nose again. “I didn’t call,” I said. My memory is as full of holes as fishnet right now—a major side effect of grief, my counselor explained last week—but I knew I hadn’t called her this morning.

“I can tell you’re crying,” she said carefully. “What triggered it?” she asked, ready as always to listen to her grieving friend process her painful loss again.

“Waking up,” I told her, and began crying once more. Every morning is like that. I wake up. I remember. I see your photo across the room. I begin to sob and stop breathing until I can reach the Kleenex again, begging for help to face another day without you. Usually, The God I’m Not Talking To will inspire someone to send me a text or mysteriously guide my feet to the shower, but this morning He made my cellphone call Sue’s phone so Sue would call me back and comfort me.

I wish The God I’m Not Speaking To would let you call me. I guess Verizon’s coverage doesn’t extend that far.

Sue’s call helped. I got up, drove to the west side of town to spend the day with Robin who’s here for a few days. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive round trip, part of it on a newer stretch of the 202 that I don’t remember being on before. Maybe you and I drove it and, as usual, I wasn’t paying attention because you were the driver and I was along for the ride. But yesterday I was the driver and nobody came along for the ride. It was really quiet, and I discovered that makes me an easy target for triggers. Thoughts like, “Rob would love this mountain view,” led straight to sobbing and a frantic search for Kleenex at seventy miles per hour. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ached, trying to ward off the sorrow that threatened to blind me with tears. Blurry eyed, weeping drivers account for nearly thirty per cent of all highway traffic accidents, you know. If you were here, you’d give me that face you make and demand proof of my statistics.

But you’re not here. So, my statistics stand.

Robin and I spent a precious day together, and then I drove that same tear-filled route back home with a couple of wrong turns because you weren’t there to remind me to take the correct exits and you know I have a terrible sense of direction, especially when I get turned around. I’m pretty turned around right now without you here, Baby. I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do every morning except cry and beg The God I’m Not Speaking To to push me out of bed.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

It was so good to get back to Katy’s house where the kiddos all gave me big squeezy hugs and Dan and Katy had supper ready for me. And even though the traffic was awful—which Robin had predicted but I shrugged off since Phoenix traffic is always terrible—I invited Allie to get in the truck with me and we drove to Chick Fil A. That was treat enough all on its own—chocolate shakes with grandbabies—especially at the end of a long, steering wheel gripping drive, wishing with all my heart that you and I were on another road trip and that I won’t be the permanent driver from now on.

I loved road trips with you.

Then the news of Allie’s discovery. And my memory of begging The God I’m Not Speaking To for help yesterday morning. And knowing I never was all alone on the long drive going to and from the west side of Phoenix even though it feels like I’m alone all the time. Grief does that to you. You were my person, Baby, and now half of me has been ripped away. I’m the only one who knows how I feel. Which makes me feel alone.

Until you send a love note unexpectedly. Or I find your voice in a long-deleted voice mail telling me you love me, which happened last week. What I’d really like tonight is a lengthy dream where you hold me in your arms, smile at me with that expression you’ve had in your eyes for the last forty-six years, and tell me it’s going to be all right. Somehow. Some way. When The God I’m Not Speaking To dries all our tears, undoes all the sadness, and turns what the enemy meant for evil into good.

I have more to say, but I’ll save it for another letter on another night. I just want you to know how much I love you. How much I miss you. And that your love note was a miraculous gift.

You are my love. My life. My all.

Eula