two years

Well, here it is. We have made it to the day.

I have been away from the computer for most of the last couple days. I went up to Dallas for the fantasy baseball draft on Saturday, and didn't get back until almost 2:30 am, so I operated on four hours of sleep today. But it has been a peaceful day. Everwood made its long awaited reappearance on television tonight with two episodes. I have only seen the first one so far, the other is waiting for tomorrow on TiVO.

The baseball draft was exactly what I needed this weekend. I had the long drives to be contemplative and lose myself in my thoughts. I needed some time for that. And then I had the hours of the draft, where I was engaged enough picking players and insulting the other teams' picks that I could just me normal for a day. Throw in the unintentional comedy of Pat's softball games, and flirting with this hottie Pat and Bonnie had at their house afterwards while I was doing their taxes. I do not think I am too old for a 23 year old, but maybe I am....... but she was sure nice to look at.

The thing I remember most about the day Becky died is that it was a pretty good day. It was a beautiful spring day in Nacogdoches. The morning was scary; Becky had a horrible time getting her breath on Saturday night, and for the first time we had raised her oxygen machine up a couple of levels. Even then, in the morning, she was completely unable to catch her breath, and barely made it into the bathroom from the bed and couldn't make it back again. So we called the ambulance and they took her to the hospital. But once they had put her on a high-flow oxygen, she perked up and was stronger than she had been in several days. And we had a nice time; her mom came to visit; she was planning on spending that next week with us, and when we called her dad to let him know she was going to the hospital, they decided to drive up from Houston. I remember thinking it was silly for them to do so, and now I am so thankful that they did.

On the high flow, she had a good day. She spent some time grading papers for school, talking about reports the students had done and how she was going to change them for summer school.

I don't think about the last couple of hours very often. I don't think about how all of a sudden at about a quarter to eight her breathing became labored, about how by a little after eight she had lost consciousness and was rushed to ICU. I don't think about seeing the scans they had taken that morning. I only saw them once, and for just a couple of seconds, but I can see them in my mind's eye just as if they were on this screen. I knew in one moment that she would never regain consciousness. I knew that she was going to die, and that it was up to me to make it as easy as possible for her and her parents. I don't think very often about all the questions that we had never asked each other about something like this; the end came just too quickly. I don't think about how I faked confidence in making those decisions because I could not ask the opinions of her parents. I don't think about going in to see her, with her limbs cramping from the lack of oxygen even though she was on a ventilator.

I do think often about the last conversation we had. I did all the talking, but she responded to my voice, and tried to look in my direction though she couldn't see. My voice is the last thing she ever responded to, and I do think often about the three promises I made to her that night. I do think about giving her permission to die, and seeing her instantaneously ceasing to battle.

I can remember all of these things in vivid detail, but I only think about a few of them very often. I remember the license plate of the car I drove behind as I took the loop home from the hospital, and I remember the eerie sound of silence when I turned off her oxygen machine that had helped sustain her for so many weeks. I remember lying down, and I remember Katie getting home with my parents in the middle of the night, and the conversation we had that night, and how precisely she remembered it in the morning when she woke up.

And then, a blur. I don't remember much of anything of the next eight weeks, certainly nothing with the exactness of March 28, 2004.

It is amazing to me that I have gone to bed 730 times now without my arm resting on her hip, without her cold feet warming themselves on my calves, without watching her brush her hair at night and again in the morning. It has been at least 730 nights since I have scratched her back, though I still keep my nails at exactly the length she liked them for back-scratching. When I stop typing for a moment and let my fingertips rest, I can feel the texture of her skin on my fingers. I can smell her shampoo. I can hear her voice. I can see her smile light up my day, and I can taste her lips.

And somehow I am supposed to believe she has been dead for two years.