You are in my heart, I feel you every second, pounding in my chest. My heart has legs, it wants to run away, it wants to run to you. Who can help me now, this is more than I can take, alone in this place that I don't want to be. Why didn't you fight harder, because I am not strong enough to fight for both of us. My blood pulses through me, your pulse is in my veins. It rushes through me, I feel that I'm going to drown in you. You are with me, but I am so alone. If only I could touch your beautiful face once again. My beautiful husband, I love you with all my soul. 

Bowling Pins

The bowling alley was in a small East Texas town. It had been there since the early days of the  1940's. The lanes were made of hardwood, timber that was cut down long ago in the backwoods, growing along side all those tall pines. Going inside this place, you could almost see the people playing, hear the laughing and  the cheers.  The loud sounds of the bowling balls hitting the floor, bowler's shoes making small marks over the wood as they slid along. The balls making contact with those white pins, standing there, waiting to be knocked over.  The pins took a beating, that's for sure.   After a long week of work, the bowling alley was the place to be, to see your friends and to enjoy some competition. It was also a  place to relieve your stress, taking your frustrations out on those pins.  The pins were part of the game, just knock them down, to see them fly up was instant gratification. The bowling pins were made of wood and were painted white.  After a season of games, they were collected up, red or blue tape was used to cover the designs on the pins, and they were repainted.  They were made to look fresh again, ready for a new game.
Years came and went and progress came to this town. The bowling alley with it's old school lanes, was coming down. What would become of all that wood..all those pins? The history of a small town, slowly leaving, slowly changing with each building that came down, and with the new one that replaced it.  A history of the people left with it.
I remember that day in Canton as being super hot. Tal and I made our way through the antique displays, stopping to look at a few things, but nothing really struck our eyes until we saw the gorgeous wood tables, gleaming hardwood, with just the right amount of distressing..these tables were magnificent.  I ran my hand over them, and imagined taking one home..strapped in the back of my Murano.  It wouldn't fit, impossible..I didn't even discuss the possibility of purchasing one of these tables with Tal.  But I could tell that Tal liked the tables, he was actually looking at the antiques offered in this particular display.  He was always a trooper, going to estate sales and antique shops with me, he enjoyed seeing me happy.  My Tal, I miss him so.  My partner, if only I could go back in time, and change the outcome of our lives.  Our days together were as perfect as could be.  I only wish they had lasted longer.
We both spotted the bowling pins at the same time.  We each picked one up, turning it around in our hands, comparing the brand names of the pins, and their colors, noticing that some had tape on them. It was then that the seller came up to us, and explained that the pins had been saved from an old bowling alley. The tables in front of us were made from the wood of the lanes, and the pins dated from the 1940's. Feeling the history in my hands, I knew that I had to take something home with me that day.  Tal and I looked at the pins again, and picked out 3 to take home.  Those pins have found a new purpose in life.  After years of being knocked down, picked up, and repainted they are a focal point in our living room.  As you enter our home, those pins are on an entry table, looking so stylish in their basket, like something out of a Pottery Barn catalog.
I can't help but wonder, if I too will have a new purpose one day. Maybe not a new purpose, but perhaps I will have a better understanding of what this all means.  After being knocked down from Tal's death, I am finding the strength to stand back up.   Tal would expect no less from me.

Melting

I am not one of those women who enjoys shopping. My vision of hell is the local shopping mall. Dillards..I hate that store, yet..they know me well in there, I am embarrassed to admit. My friend took me there a few days after Tal died. I needed funeral garb. How fucking dreadful is that. I wear Levis and boots. My uniform of sorts. I cried as she guided me in a gentle fashion through the displays, showing me this or that, all of which I absolutely detested. She managed to find me a suit..how disgusting, so not me. After all, Tal was going away in his Levis and flip flops, why did I have to dress up like an impostor, he might not recognize me, his wife, at his funeral. I bought the suit, which took 3 hours I later discovered. I then found myself sitting in the shoe department. I sat there crying, with bewildered shoe sales people looking at me. When have you EVER been to a shoe department where you weren't immediately accosted? The lucky sales person of the day was a quiet young man, who shared his loss of his grandfather. He told me that I would be okay one day. I sure hope he's right.
I had the pleasure of visiting the mall on several occasions since then, to purchase clothing for my trip to Greece. I had 2 separate sales people tell me that they remembered me, I was the lady who lost her husband. I was slightly surprised, and wondered what I did to make such a lasting impression upon them.
Walking out the door of Dillards, the extreme heat hit me immediately. It was 120 in my truck, which was parked in the shade. I stood there in the parking lot looking at the wavy heat rising off the pavement. I had the strongest desire to lay down right in the middle of this lot, throwing my shopping bags and purse to the side. I imagined slowly melting like a chocolate bar, hmm.. that wouldn't be so bad. Instead, I just stood there fantasizing how wonderful it would be, to feel the heat from the inside out, to give in to this pain I was feeling. Melting my pain away.

Don't You See Me Crying?

Are there really any words to describe how I feel now that you are gone? Well meaning people tell me that you aren't gone, that you are indeed still with me. I can't help but ask you Tal, where are you? I look for you everywhere, but I don't see you. I see your toothbrush and hair gel in the bathroom, right where you left them. I see your favorite flip flops under the dresser in the bedroom, they are waiting for you. I see your work boots in the garage, when are you coming home to go to work? We have a new office building now. Your old office belongs to someone else now. Did I imagine my life, or were you here? The tears streaming down my face tell me that you were. I don't know why this happened. I don't know why other people live and you don't. Why did the girls have to see you die on the side of the road? For months I didn't drive down Old Granbury Road. But I do now. I look for you on the side of the road, I look for the spot with the dip in the road. I wonder if you saw what happened that night. The lights, the screams, I don't know. You were here. But now you aren't.
How do I go on now without by best friend, my husband, the man who loved me more than anything? Tal, why did you die? What about your life, what about your dreams? What about our dreams? The future is gone. My past is a memory. My life with you is over. My future, present, and past are one big void. I want you back now. I won't take no for an answer. Don't you see me crying?

Treasure

When I was much younger, I lived in Greece. 29 years ago, actually. How did time pass so quickly? It was cold on the island of Aegina, where we would go on wintry weekends to escape Athens, if only for a few days. Such a different place in the cold months, not at all like the summer, tourist-filled days of summer. My mother would sometimes come, but most of the time..I went with my aunt and uncle, and my cousin, Cynthia.
I was a quiet girl, full of opinions that I kept to myself. How I wish I could do that now. It was a sad time, my parents were separated, and my younger brother was back in Virginia with my father. I was sad. Sad for my parents, sad for me, and sad for my brother.
The island provided an escape for me, where I could walk the beaches, made up of volcanic rocks, full of nooks and secret little spots where starfish and tiny shells lived. I spent hours investigating these places, and collecting my little treasures, some of which were so small..hundreds could fit in a matchbox. I found tiny red shells, green ones which I discovered were called Emerald Nerites, and tiny blue ones still clinging to the rocks.
I would look out at the Aegean Sea and wonder why I was so sad. Why was my family so different than my friends? Looking around me, I would also wonder what it would be like if the sea laying in front of me would drain exposing all the fish and shells. I imagined myself walking and walking, finding ancient Greek coins, and rings of gold with rubies and emeralds. My aunt found a gold ring with emeralds wedged between some rocks, after all...So why couldn't I? It most likely slipped from the hand of a summer visitor.
I am now 41, and life isn't so different for me. I am still sad, still wondering why I have somehow been singled out in my family to be unhappy. Why has my Tal been taken from me, my sweet husband, my love. I found him, a treasure, that slipped from my hand.