Vital memories on a sad day

Today marks one year since my beautiful wife, Joanne, succumbed to breast cancer.  Needless to say, this has been a very hard week.

The week started off with my birthday this past Monday.  Although many friends and relatives, including all my kids, sent birthday wishes I spent the day sitting around the house feeling sorry for myself.  Would have been better off getting out and doing something.

On Tuesday I decided it was time to get out of here and see some people.  Went to youngest son's house to spend some time with them during the evening.  His Cathy and her twin daughters all had birthdays this week so I took them their presents.  Alan and Cathy and their three precious girls can always lift my spirits.

Wednesday I picked up my wonderful niece, Carrie, for lunch.  Went to Romano's Macaroni Grill for a good Italian meal.  Spending time with Carrie is also always a great pick me up.  Afterward I was able to spend the afternoon working on cleaning out more of Joanne's clothing and getting it boxed up to donate to the needy.  (I continue to be amazed at the amount of things we accumulate over the years.  So far I've now donated nine very large boxes of clothing to Goodwill Industries and still have more to go.)  On Thursday I took the latest boxes up to the Goodwill Donation Center.

Now we get to today.  I've known for some time this was going to be a hard day to get through.  I also knew that it was also going to be very hard for Carrie.  (As has been posted here several times, Carrie was actually Joanne's niece.)  Sometime back my friend, Jonathan Beck Reed, had given me a pair of tickets to a play in which he was starring so, after a good dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill, Carrie and I headed down to the Civic Center.  The play was a very intense drama called The Normal Heart.  This play had recently won Tony Awards on Broadway.  This was the Oklahoma premiere of the play and was being produced by CityRep, one of the many local acting companies here in town.  This evening was a good diversion for Carrie and I both.

This week has given me a chance, again, to reflect on the life that Joanne and I had together.  For over twenty-three years of marriage I really cannot fathom being with anyone else.  I have great memories and, fortunately, loads of pictures that we took all over this great country.  We had debated retiring when we did in 1966.  We were both under "normal" retirement age and could have continued to work.  Now, looking back, I am so grateful for those six years we had to travel and spend that time together.