Wednesday, December 7, 2011

A Letter to Danny December 6, 2011

I guess I need to go through an anniversary of every memory, each event, until I can have the pain release me.  The smell of coffee reminds me of you.  Do you remember our first Christmas darling? We both wanted a flocked Christmas tree.  We couldn’t afford a nice one, so we bought an ugly one and you wired branches to it to fill in the holes.  Why we decided on blue lights and blue bulbs, I still can’t understand.  I guess at the time we thought they would look wonderful on our Charlie Brown tree.  We had no money for gifts, but we wrapped empty boxes and put them under the tree.  Mom brought over our gifts and on Christmas morning we unwrapped them to find one of them was a bag of coffee.  How many cups of coffee have we shared honey over the last 47 years?  Remember honey, you would ask me “How many times do you think I’ve kissed you?”  And I would answer “A couple.” 

I got an email from your friend Gary.  He was telling me how you two became friends.  Apparently, according to him, it was a pretty special honor to be your friend.  He said you were in the sixth grade.  He was in one class and you in the other and the teachers decided to have a baseball competition between the two.  He said all of the guys knew you threw a pretty fast pitch so when he got to the plate, he was a little apprehensive.  He said your first pitch was fast and inside and he jumped out of the way in time.  The second however hit him right on the nose.  He said blood poured and his teacher gave him a towel and told him to go put some cold water on it.  While he was doing so, you walked in and said “I’m sorry Gar.  I didn’t mean to hit you.”  He said you have been friends since that fateful day playing baseball.  He said you held the record for “bizzing” behind cars.  He said you had bizzed thirty-three blocks. 
I wish I had known you then.  I wish I knew every second of your life.  For now my love the thought of my not sharing a minute of your life is almost unbearable to me. 
Honey, what should I do?  I remember your words “Get up and get going and it will make you feel better.”  So this morning I got up and started cleaning but guess what my love.  I’m not feeling better.  I think it would make me feel better if I knew where you were.  Is there a state where you go to rest to heal from this life?  Are you fishing with your dad?   Have you met my dad yet?  Are you standing next to me?  For all these years I have known where you were.  I knew if you were at work, or fishing on the river.  I knew if you were hunting Schofield or pheasant hunting down on Geneva Road.  I knew if you were out carving in your carving shed, or laying down.  Because I knew where you were, I knew where my heart was at because after all, you held my heart.  Just know this my love.  Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, my heart is still with you.  I will try and knit the void left inside me.  I love you Danny.  Far beyond the 12th of Never.

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