So, here it is: a milestone. Half a year. It seems both like yesterday and a million years ago.

In my mind’s eye, I can still see her face after she died; how jaundiced she was, but how relieved her face looked. Geddes Road, the path to St. Joe’s we’d taken so often, holding hands and saying our daily rosary, tugs at my heart. The little side trips to Home Depot, or Meijer, or Kroger – just to get out of the house for a while with her. To Michael’s, Joann Fabrics, and Hobby Lobby in search of the material she wanted for her “car quilt” – to keep her warm for the winter chemo trips that never came to be. Our daily – sometimes twice daily – walks through the neighborhood when the weather warmed up. And the side trip to look at the fall colors on the day, 15 October, she’d decided she had had enough of the doctors and the chemo.

I remember the trip we took to Hines Drive 16 October because she wanted pictures with me at the water. We took them with a selfie stick at Nankin Mill and Wilcox Lake, Jillian tagging along with us. On the way home, we stopped at the Dollar Tree store at Joy and Morton Taylor so she could go through the Halloween stuff and look at some candles, candle holders, and wood pieces for her crafting. She had such a hard time moving through the parking lot and through the store. It was shortly after that that she lost feeling in her hands and gave up on crafting altogether. Those purchases are still in a bag on one of the tables in her craft room.

And I remember events from earlier in our life together, both with joy and with melancholy. We had built such a good life together – neither my constant travel for work nor her alcoholism could destroy it (though the latter came the closest, to my perspective). We built a beautiful family. Much to celebrate.

I find that, for the most part, I am at peace with Kim; with my memories of her. I still have triggers, and I still miss her dearly. But I’m at peace.

Everything in and about our lives leads to something else. Everything we have is built from and upon what we had; from our experiences. I would have been ecstatic if the good Lord had seen fit to give Kim a miracle – to give us a chance to grow old together. But He did not. Kim is with Him now, and I am left to grow from the experience of losing her – just as I grew in our life together. Much of who I am today is Kim’s creation, crafted from our experiences together; from our joining of two lives into one, and living that life until half expired. She continues to influence who I am becoming – her memory, the grief. She will always be a part of me, and that part of me will always inform the rest of me.

I love you Kim. I miss you. Thank you for having chosen me, thank you for our family, and thank you for who you’ve made me into.