Sometimes on a day like today, when the temperatures and humidity are near perfect, and the mind calmly stalks and destroys the tasks set aside for now; I am brought up sharply by an intimate recognition of a past moment. In this case a miraculous and telling moment. Of a dear and departed love.
Sheila was an extraordinary woman. Even more extraordinary than I ever realized. She kept my jumbled life and "momentous thoughts" in order, and in proper scale. She reasoned with me by being patient and understanding that I could and would come around to the "sensible and common sense" solution, eventually. Sheila was a perfect match for me; even though I was probably not a "perfect match" for her. My love almost overcame my many faults as a partner, and a husband, and a caretaker at the very end ... but not completely .
"She," as I liked to call her -- was the essence of a good, kind and loving person. And she could laugh easily at her own foibles, and certainly at my many such -- in a way that never insulted me, but made me clearly see the joke in my conceits. She knew me as well as I knew me, and better than she knew even herself. She accepted me; she tried to make me better (as I did her). And she failed at the latter, as I did as well. We were not perfect -- but we were good together, and remained a "newly-wed couple until the end of our twenty-year marriage."
I loved her; and She loved me. "I was not her first husband" as She liked to say; "I was her only husband." And our love was just too brief a moment. I would savor it better, if it were now, instead of then.
Resist, resist, resist!!!!!!!!!!!!
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