To borrow from The Beatles, “you left me standing here a long, long time ago. Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door”. But in all actuality, it wasn’t a “long, long time ago” when my life suddenly turned on a dime unexpectedly. Until then, I had my life figured out, well at least I thought I did? I was in a loving relationship for nearly 9 years with that same little homecoming princess with the mouth full of braces that I had referenced in my ‘about me’ page. She was my first love back in 8th grade (though she had no idea at the time and I never had the courage to tell her then), and thru fate or perhaps just pure luck?, we reconnected shortly after my divorce in 2011. For most of those years, they were the happiest of my life. I raced home most days from work just to be next to her, I would bring flowers home to her for no reason at all, I posted about my deep affection for her on facebook way too many times (much to her chagrin), and could never understand how I got so lucky when so many people have never felt that same way about someone. I paid for trips for the two of us – Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, Destin, and many weekend getaways. All of that just to show my appreciation because of how she made me feel.
Like any good fairytale however, there has to be something bad happen. I mean what good story doesn’t include that right?, would you want to see a movie where everyone is happy and there’s never any problem or challenges to have to overcome? It’s how life balances out right? light vs. dark, good vs. evil, yin vs. yang. In this case, that very bad thing happened on July 6th, 2018 – exactly one year to the day after I was diagnosed with cancer (more on that later). On a Friday morning, in the middle of a 5-day holiday weekend, the phone rang. The call was from her mother, and the next sound I heard from the kitchen was a horrifying scream that will forever haunt me. “No Momma, don’t tell me that, NOOOOOO, don’t tell me that”. After that day, after that call, none of our lives would ever be the same. And now it seems, that it was a long, long time ago.
Following….
Heartbreaking….