Sweet David

I can hardly believe a year has gone by since my darling husband David passed, April 26, 2009.  Tommorrow (April 11th) would have been his 69th birthday.  Everything around me is reminding me of him.  The Spring flowers blooming in the simple joy of being  flowers, decorating my yard with their joyful presence, is bringing home the memories of him.  His presence is ever so strong in my heart and mind.  He is all around me.  I sit with my morning coffee in the garden, where he and I co-created such  a beautiful sacred space.  He is always near me as I glance onto the things he built; the stone walls, the pond in the sunken garden, the stone patios.  I smile as I view the towering pines that he rescued from Walmart because no one wanted them and they were to be thrown away.  In all their crooked shapes, they grew tall and brought joy back to the man who saved them.  Here and there are plants he rescued because someone was going to throw them away, carelessly not caring that they were a living force of energy.  Dave brought home the orphaned plants, in his kindness, they smile back at him.  Now they smile at me. I created and designed our garden, David built it.  I planted and tended to the flowers, making purchase after purchase as he grumbled about where I was going to put them, "I'd run out of space", he said.  I would argue with a "please let me bring it home" look in my eyes, that we'd find room for just one more!  Before he died, on one of his better days. while sitting and enjoying the garden, he turned his sweet face to me and said, "I'm sure glad you made me keep finishing this yard.  It's so beautiful and I am really enjoying it.  I wouldn't have done this myself."  I knew then that he was resting in what was 'our" creation together.  We were a great team, him and I.  We both had so many ideas and plenty of energy to pursue our goals.  Although we  each had different businesses, we complimented each other in our work and in our play. Our energy together had a lot of vitality and vibrance. Sometimes our vibrations were so high we conflicted, but what couple doesn't from time to time, especially if you're both as strong willed as we were.

It is good to rmember Dave, his face always smiling and his mind always working.  He was a talker, my Dave.  Always busy, always being productive.  He was never dull or boring but always had some new project in the works.  His energy level for a man of 68 was remarkable even in sickness.  He never wanted to go, to leave me behind.  He fought long and hard to stay here with me.  "I just want to be with you" he would say.  He was the kind of guy who was just happy being around me.  He took joy in who I was and accepted me fully.  He was that way with most people, accepting them as they came,  never asking them to change.

David had an incredible ability to just flow with life.  I learned many things from him, this being the biggest lesson.  I always had a tendency to fight change.  He would say, "Cindy, if you would just go with it and stop fighting it, it would become so easy."  He was right.  Spoken like the true wind surfer and downhill skiier he was, he could cut through any of life's adversities with the greatest of ease.  God must have smiled down on him many times. Dave was a positive soul.  He always knew happiness was a choice.  He always picked the high road!

He was a natural born teacher to mankind.  He never passed and opportnity to share his knowledge with anyone who was interested.  With me, interested or not, he taught me things to help me grow as a person.  He strengthened me.  In that strength, he helped me to prepare for what neither of us knew years later would be waiting for us.  Did he know on some level he would go before me?  I don't know.  I just know that while we butted heads over many things, his lessons were there for me to draw on after he was gone.  He taught me too, that a couple can argue things through to resolution.  He was a great debator and I learned to hold my own with him.  He was the strongest man I have ever known and he helped me to become the strongest woman I could possibly be.

I miss him.  He is always with me in a good way.  I can still smell the scent of him and taste his sweet sweet kisses.  I can still see his smiling face, his twinkling eyes and pink flushed skin.  I can still feel his lingering touch of his soft warm hands on my smooth skin. He had a way of touchng me that that was so healing.  In his hands, was the comfort of the world.  One touch and I knew everything would be alright.  But in the end, it was him taking comfort from my touch, telling me how good it felt to him.  I was so glad that I could soothe him  in his pain.  So glad that I could comfort him and be close to him as he drew nearer and nearer to leaving me.  Touch was vital to each of us in the end.  When he first got sick, five years earlier, I whispered in his ears, "Dave.....don't go anywhere without me, ok?" He would always nod, "okay" with a smile. Yet, I couldn't keep him beside me any longer.  God had other plans for him and for me.

I am  trying to move through the loss.  Although I feel him with me all the time, I miss his companionship and life force so very much.  I had no idea it would be so hard to find my own way without him.  We were so close. Sometimes it seems unreal that he isn't here.  Sometimes I think he's only away on a trip, he'll be back.  Yet, the front door never opens, I never hear his voice, I never see the warmth of his glowing face and body.  I only hold him in my memories.  I try to move on through the maze of emotions, for I know that is what Dave would want and expect from me.  I try to find purpose, a reason to keep going, but he was my reason.  He was my sunshine, my morning glow.  He was what I came home to, who I snuggled in with each night, the man I confided in, my best friend.

Tomorrow I will remember his birthday.  However, April 26th will be the one year anniversary of his birth into a new world I have yet to experience.  A dimension of existence unknown to me.  I know he is a force of energy.  I know that energy keeps existing. I believe he is alive and well in this new form.  I beleive that in conciousness we are still connected.  I know he is in all things now.  I saw him in the beautiful silver hair of a stranger walking down the street, I had to take a second look.  I see him in the flowers and feel him in the wind.  I see our bond in the spring birds making nests together, I see his laughter in the little things he thought funny; I find him in adventure, spontaneity and excitment in life.  He is there as I watch the down hill skiers, the windsurfers, the couple canoeing across a quiet lake or river.  He is in every beautiful sunrise and every sunset.  Yes, he is in everything.  My sweet, sweet David.

A QUIET MOMENT OF INTIMACY

I slept late this morning. Perhaps some of the after affects of getting my flu shot the day before. Walking sleepily from the bedroom to my kitchen, I made my usual pot of organic coffee. Pouring my first cup, I was lured outside to the garden where I could be with the sounds and sights of nature. Because I awoke later than usual, the sun was already warming my usual sitting area, which seemed uncomfortably hot. So, I moved over to the shaded gazebo. David's ashes sat in the sundial just beyond the arch of the gazebo. It had been five months since my husband past. There I was, sitting near him, like old times sharing our morning coffee together. As I soaked up the late morning air, I felt drawn to move to the sunken garden below. Here, laid the pond that David built. As my bare feet touched the stone walkway leading in that direction, I could feel the warmth of the sun penetrating into my feet and toes. I stood at the top of the stairs that led down to the pond, gazing for a moment over the fruit of David's labor. What a beautiful gift he had left me with in his work. The pond was David's creation and we enjoyed many mornings and evenings there. It was a very intimate space in the yard. I stepped slowly down one step at a time, until reaching the moist grass below. Still wet from the morning sprayers, it felt cool and damp on my toes. My heart sang a little as I experienced the temperature difference between the upper and lower levels of the garden. I sat down in the chair in the West corner, which was shaded by the stone wall and the trees. Sitting, I tucked one foot under me, while the other foot dangled in the cool grass below. A magazine lay opened across my lap and I became engrossed in an article I was reading. Occasionally, I looked up, gazing at the cascading water falling over the rocks and into the pool below. The air felt ten degrees cooler, leaving me deliciously comfortable for this time of the day. Deeply engrossed in my reading, I sat quietly, reflecting on my own thoughts. All was still here except the sound of bubbling water and the sweet songs of the birds filling the air. The shade from the tree I sat under felt good. I must have read for at least an hour before I felt something change in the air. By now, I was in a quiet meditative state, reflecting on life and pondering over the article in front of me. The air began to move differently. My nostrils flared in high awareness of a familiar scent. It was triggering a memory of days gone by when I would sit by a stream or waterfall in Massachusetts. There I would smell the moistness in the air, combined with the scents of moss, stone and dampness. The similar fragrance filled my being enough to distract me from my reading. I had sat by this pond many times before and never had the experience of what I was now smelling or feeling. I laid down the magazine, paying more attention to what nature was communicating with me. Again, the warm air seemed to move over the water, cooling it and lifting the scents of nature from the pond. It drifted over to me in a gentle breeze, kissing my skin in cool moist delight. For several minutes, each breeze washed over me, bathing my skin in cool essence of scents not typically found here in Arizona. I was enjoying the game nature was playing. She was distracting me! Just for a moment in time, gentle breezes kissed me, gentle breezes touched me, gentle breezes danced with me and filled my senses. I couldn't help but wonder if David wasn't dancing in the wind.