Here Without You

Dear Michael,

Since you first went away, I wondered and worried about what I would do if I got sick without you here.  I almost feared it as much as the anniversaries, Holidays and other special occasions.  I didn't know what I would do with Tru, how I would take care of him and myself.  Who would feed us, clean up after us.  Most of all, who would feel sorry for me and say "poor little muchacho"?

I started coming down with this "plague" the night your cousin came to visit from Washington, D.C.  I thought  it just HAD to be allergies.  But then I woke up hacking and coughing and I knew I was sick.  But, being the optimist, I figured 24 hours and I'd be done.  Then I woke up this morning feeling even worse, and reality started to sink in....I'm sick!  I'm really, actually sick and this stinks and I'm here without you.

You were so wonderful to me when I was sick.  You would stop at the store and get me Freska and cup o soup (chicken flavored) and you would take care of Tru while I slept on the couch and the two of you would watch t.v.  As long as we were near each other, that's all that mattered to us.  You didn't even mind me coughing all night and keeping you up.  The one time I went and got on the couch to keep from waking you up, you said you'd rather I just stay in the bed with you.  That was just us.  We always wanted to be together.

I remember you telling me that you would be perfectly happy if you just had the three of us.  You just wanted your family near you.  You didn't need anything else.  But Sweetie, now I'm here without you and no one says "poor little muchacho", no one gets me soup, no one covers me up when I'm cold or feels my forehead for a fever.  And Michael, I feel really, really scared and I feel really, really sorry for myself.

I'm not afraid of this virus, and we have managed to eat and survive.  Tru has been fairly decent, although he's not sympathetic at all.  But what I am afraid of, is getting really sick.  I mean cancer sick, or stroke sick or hospital sick.  Who will even care?  I mean, I know my kids and grand-kids would "care" but who would stay with me?  Who would worry about me like you did?  Who would sleep on the cot in my hospital room and check on me through out the night and hold my hand when I'm scared?  Because when you left, I lost my person.  I lost my strength.  I lost the one who would hold my hand and make me brave.

I have this vision of my future self.  A little old white haired lady, so frail that there's barely a bump beneath the sheet, all alone in the hospital bed or nursing home bed.  No one there to sit with me.  Just alone with the sounds of the machines and the noise in the halls made by the nurses running up and down with their carts, trying to get their assignments done before shift change. The sound of the patient in the room next door yelling out nonsense words.  I've seen this woman before. I've seen so many women like this when I was the nurse running up and down the hall.  And now, I can see me as that little lady.

We had a deal, you know.  We had a deal that we would be that cute couple in the nursing home.  That we would scoot our beds next to each other, and when the time came, you would take my hand and say "Come on, G, let's go home".  That was the deal, Michael.  But you left.  And now, I'm here without you, Baby, and I'm the little lady with the white hair who's all alone.