Page 66 of Someone to Remember
At home, Derek pulls off his tie the second we walk in the door and tosses it onto the kitchen table. His suit coat is slung over a chair as he takes my work bag, grabs the lunch I made for myself to put in the fridge and then puts the bag by the door for tomorrow when we’ll try again to go to work. Hopefully, it’ll go better then.
Taking me by the hand, Derek leads me straight upstairs, where he helps me change into my favorite at-home attire—track pants and one of Patrick’s long-sleeved T-shirts. While I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth and rinse the foul taste out of my mouth, he goes into the closet to finish removing his work clothes and emerges in basketball shorts and a T-shirt from a 5K he did last year.
Derek sits next to me on the bed. “What can I do?”
“This is what I needed. Thank you for making it happen.”
He puts his arm around me, and I drop my head to his shoulder.
“I’m always thankful for you, but never more so than when widow shit arises.”
“I get it.”
“I know you do—and I’m sorry that you do.” We stay like that for a long while, absorbing the comfort we can get only from each other. “I thought this kind of setback was a thing of the past.”
“PTSD doesn’t work like that. It says when and what and how.”
“So I’m discovering. I’m not a fan.”
He grunts out a laugh. “Nor am I.”
“Will it always be this way? Ten years from now, will I hear about something happening to someone else, someone I don’t even know all that well, and it’ll cause a spiral for me?”
“I hate to tell you that it’s apt to be a thing for the rest of your life.”
“Great.”
“You know what the good news is?”
“There’s good news?”
“Always. It’s that you loved Patrick so deeply and so truly that you’ll suffer over losing him for the rest of your life. So many people never get to experience a love like that.”
I raise my head so I can see the face that’s become the center of my life in the after. “Or a love like this one.”
“We’re truly blessed to have found it twice.”
“The most blessed people have the most to lose.”
“That’s also true. Life is just a series of risks that hopefully add up to something beautiful.”
“I can’t take it sometimes. I really can’t.”
“And that’s totally fine. When you feel like that, take the time you need to feel stronger again. This widow thing isn’t just the first few months after a loss. It’s a life sentence, and there’ll be days when it’s too hard to carry and other days when it barely shows up.”
“I’d like a schedule so I can better prepare for the days when it rears its ugly head.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice? But think of it this way… If you had a schedule, dreading the upcoming bad days would take the joy out of the happy days.”
“You’ve gotten good at this.”
He laughs. “Gee, thanks. Just what I always wanted—to be a successful widower.”
“You’re a good man first and foremost.”
“I’m a better man now than I was when I wasmarried to Vic. I have a lot of guilt about that, as you know. But all we can do is all we can do, you know? When we know better, we do better.”
“Hell of a way to know better.”
