Jan Clears the Deck!
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes, 33 seconds
But she kissed me at her party! I felt the earth move, but maybe she didn’t.
I had considered leaving Brooklyn the following Spring to start graduate school. Could we have survived such a separation if I was one of three?
I want to focus on her singing, but my mind is doing cartwheels. If we had not met, what would my life have been?
Suddenly, a loud noise made it almost impossible for me to hear her singing. Darkness swallowed our car. It is as if all the lights on earth have gone out. Are we being attacked by a drone?
Photographic memories of our lives vanished from my brain. It is like a giant vacuum cleaner is removing everything about Jan from my brain.
I want my memories of Jan!
I am afraid to look at the passenger seat as I am so scared; she is no longer there.
I’ll like to know that your love
Carole King
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now and I won’t ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
We stop at a traffic light a block from our house. I hear a voice singing next to me.
“Are you OK?”
I hold her hand for a minute and nod my head affirmatively. I turned and saw her beautiful smiling face. Since the day we had met, I always enjoyed seeing her smile.
Home is where the heart is
Once I had parked the car in the garage, I moved quickly to the vehicle’s passenger side. I opened her door and helped her out. Before reaching into the car’s back seat to get the bag of leftovers, I gave Jan a hug and a kiss. “I love you so very much, and I am even happier that we are still in love after all these years! I will love you tomorrow and for eternity!”
Jan responded as she always did by reminding me that I do not need to tell her all the time that I love her.
Our only quarrel as lovers goes like this.
But I love you so very much.
But I know you love me! You don’t need to tell me all the time.
Merrit Malloy says, “If you are with someone you love, tell them.”
I never like these moments. Like Michaela in Joyce Carol Oates‘s “Breathe,” I sometimes think Jan is “shy, in the language of intimacy.” After 40 years, I can do nothing to change her missing skill set.
I hug Jan and whisper into her ear that I love her. Taking her arm, I help her into our home.
I put the food away. Jan goes to the guest bathroom.
She returned, holding her shoes, scarf, and bra as she walked over to her comfy brown chair. I take the shoes and bra to the bedroom.
I get her a glass of water with crushed ice on the way back.
“You always know what I need,” she said as she smiled at me.
I sit across the room on the couch. I turned the radio to the station we listened to on the ride home.
When I turned to look at Jan, she had one foot stretched out and the other leg raised. Her dress was sliding down and revealing a lot of her lovely thighs. Perhaps that was why I put my shoe in my mouth and asked a foolish question. Honestly, it was not the first or last time I would chew on my shoe.
“Sweetheart, we have been together for forty years,” I said. “Are you happy you ended up with me?”
Jan picked up her iPhone and smiled, “Let me think about that for a minute?”
She began to scroll. My heart almost stopped while I waited for her to speak.
“This one retired at 55, has three houses, one in Paris!”
She scrolled some more.
“The other one retired early as well. Wow, what a big yacht, fancy cars, and many houses!”
My heart sunk into my shoe, which was now entirely in my mouth.
Jan must have detected the panic on my face.
“Come over here,” she said in a loving tone.
I walked over slowly, not sure what to expect.
After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.
