It's another one of those days when Gwen is always on the edge of my awareness. I miss her so. Today while I was at the outing at the UM Golf Course I had this strange feeling of guilty freedom. In the past when I would attend this I would worry some that Gwen was doing OK at home alone, call her on the cell phone, hurry home with a lunch for her after the outing ended. Today I found myself still thinking those kind of thoughts. More than once I caught myself reaching for the phone to call Gwen and tell her about something that had just happened. Even as I drove into the garage I had this little feeling of excitement that I would soon be able to tell Gwen about my day. Reality set in when I recalled her brave attempts to climb the three steps up to the kitchen door. And, as usual, reality sucked.
The day was not without its humorous moments. My partner at the outing was a personable young man; a banker in Saline. When we drove to the parking lot to put our clubs in our cars, they were respectively my Prius and his Lincoln. We didn't have a lot to talk about during the day.
First time ever, my neighbor came over this evening, and I invited him into the house. He came to get some of my golf balls. In exchange he is going to water my flowers and mow my lawn while I'm gone out west. We are very different people, but we get along together very well--kind of like the banker and me today.
On the drive up to Mary and Milt's last weekend I passed a little roadside park at which Gwen and I had stopped to have a picnic lunch. I believe that two of our nieces, Julie and Debby were also with us, because I remembered stopping at the park on the lake right in the town of Cadillac. This poem is about a different time when we stopped there:
The day was not without its humorous moments. My partner at the outing was a personable young man; a banker in Saline. When we drove to the parking lot to put our clubs in our cars, they were respectively my Prius and his Lincoln. We didn't have a lot to talk about during the day.
First time ever, my neighbor came over this evening, and I invited him into the house. He came to get some of my golf balls. In exchange he is going to water my flowers and mow my lawn while I'm gone out west. We are very different people, but we get along together very well--kind of like the banker and me today.
On the drive up to Mary and Milt's last weekend I passed a little roadside park at which Gwen and I had stopped to have a picnic lunch. I believe that two of our nieces, Julie and Debby were also with us, because I remembered stopping at the park on the lake right in the town of Cadillac. This poem is about a different time when we stopped there:
ROADSIDE PARK
I stopped at the little roadside park
we once visited,
right outside the city of Cadillac;
remembered how we feasted
on Skippy Peanut Butter,
Welch’s Grape Jelly,
Wonder White Bread;
ate a whole box of just-picked blueberries.
Then we were back on the road,
map in hand, she was my built-in GPS,
just turn when she said turn,
go here, stop there, I trusted her,
she always got us where we were going.
Now I travel alone in my fancy car,
without her at my side, no map,
no one to listen to:
just a computer voice,
make a legal U-turn. . .
I’m lost as I can be:
if I don’t know my destination,
how will I ever get there?
John A. Bayerl, August 8, 2011
One of the many things you did to make me complete, Dear, was to be my sure sense of direction in the world. And so I miss not having your steady presence at my side as I go about figuring out where I am headed and how to get there.
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