It came in today's mail

[jeudi]

Today would have been John's 65th birthday. Social security year! Yet another unlived milestone. Kind of sucky. Feeling low (ish) most of the day. Oddly, didn't ask him for a sign. I've started to ask less and more to just wait and see and if I am blindsided...which always turns out to be even better.

 

Second husband came in with the mail and did his usual, for me, for you, bill, bill...only today there was a letter for John. So it was : for me, for you, bill, bill, John.

 

It was from the LSU Alumni association. I told them fifteen years ago John died. And then a few years after telling LSU I moved a few states over to be with my boyfriend and we've moved to a house that both of us bought together and he is now my second husband - we finally got married several years ago. And today a letter comes for John.

 

He never lived in Florida.

 

I'm guessing this is a sign although it is a bit obscure...LSU alumni? He wasn't all that into being at that school even when we were there. But it makes ME think of our time there, him down in the bowels of the natural history lab, right next door to the printmaking studio with me covered in ink and being schooled by the extraordinary Jim Burke. It was quite the coincidence that John's building and my building were adjoined.

 

I used to make a brown bag lunch for the two of us to share during our spare time. There were steps between the two buildings and we sat there and shared a sandwich and a pudding cup and a bag of cheetos. Sometimes we would walk a few blocks to the record store and go through the bins. Sometimes we would lay on our backs on the lawn in the quadrangle, close by our two buildings, holding hands and dozing in the sunshine.

 

LSU years were our beginning years. We didn't have a TV in our teeny studio apartment but we did have an aquarium with two turtles and another with African Clawed Frogs. We used to hunt for tree frogs to feed a finicky snake kept in a third aquarium (John was a herpetologist and he spent his time in the natural history lab counting skull bones for some research I know longer remember exactly why or what) and this was all new to me. It was fun and exciting- the tree frogs were hunted after midnight on the side of an industrial building with a security light that attracted insects and the tree frogs were there taking advantage of that bounty.

 

The more I write the more I understand the validity of the sign.

 

Thanks honey. Happy birthday.

 

Judy

 

 

[BrokenHeart2]

Hugs to you jeudi.  Thanks for sharing that beautiful memory with us.  I find it interesting that now my memories are starting to make me smile.  It used to bother me because I wanted more time to make memories, I feel so robbed of them.  I guess I've just learned to accept "it is what it is".

Hugs again

[sudnlysngl]

((((hugs))))