Here's what I have to do: I have to remember that who I am is someone that Jerry Enright loved, and that I deserve to be treated as well as I was treated by Jerry Enright... including by me.
I'm still here. It's still a struggle. Decisions are hard. Some decisions are wrong. Some are right. It's a shame I can't always know which are which until afterwards, but I'm still muddling through. Random information: I'm just under a week from being a year from being fifty, and I still don't know how that happened. Got food poisoning a number of weeks back, drove myself to the ER, got rehydrated. Hysterectomy has been put off until September 29. Went to Alabama to remember an important part of who I am (Sacred Harp singer), got caught off guard a few songs after leading 77t for Jerry with no problem and had to step outside the church and sit on the front step until the sobbing stopped. He should have been right there, over to the right as I faced the tenor bench, or maybe at the front. He should have been. It was all wrong that he wasn't.
Blew off running after the food poisoning, excuses tending towards "It's too hot" (which it's been) or "It's raining" (which it has). But went out today (in the process discovering I may have lost my spare car key, which means around $50 at least to replace it at the Honda dealership). Hard, almost like starting from scratch. Which is what will happen again after the surgery and recovery, but at least I did it.
Going back to Alabama at the end of the month, assuming my vacation days are approved: I wasn't going to go to Lookout Mountain, where Jerry and I met in 1998 and where we held his memorial last year, since I was supposed to be having surgery the Thursday before that, but now that that's postponed until the end of September, I'll drive back down.
I'm still here. I just haven't written a lot. Obviously. It's still hard. I'm doing the two-steps-forward-one-step-back shuffle, I think. Better than one-step-forward-two-steps-back, I guess.
Jerry Enright loved me. What more in life could I aspire to than to live up to that love?
It's amazing how far the knowledge that we were loved by an amazing man can carry us. Since I'm in the middle of moving, I've been finding notes and cards from Nick, reminding me of that love. I never will forget how I feel about him, but it takes my breath away to read his own words describing how he felt about me.
ReplyDeleteWe need to remember what it felt like, to be loved so utterly, so that love can carry us through the darkness.
If you ever figure out how to make the right decisions every time let me know! I do hope that you have a great time at the sing this weekend - remembering & enjoying time with friends. Thinking of you!
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