Goodbye
This morning I drove across Virginia, over the Blue Ridge Mountains and crossed over into West Virginia. This life is over, the life I had with Hal, and tomorrow a new one starts.
I met Hal in 1981 on Langley Air Force Base in Hampton. He usually sat at the operator’s position of a computer system–back then a computer occupied the square footage of a good-sized home and was still less powerful than the one I’m typing this blog entry on. I would walk past his position, say hello, and then continue to the communications room, where I worked.
Hal and I were married at the main chapel on Langley on July 16, 1983. Later that year we were transferred, and we eventually returned to Langley in the summer of 1987. We lived in Virginia from then on.
On October 5, 2007, Hal’s memorial service was held at the Langley main chapel, the same chapel where we were married.
My life with Hal wasn’t over on that day. I held onto it for over two years, staying in the house where he died, seeing the same people, doing the same things, going to the same places. There were many days when I didn’t think I could stand the pain of being without Hal, when I thought it might be so much easier if I just “followed him into the dark.” (If you don’t know this reference, look up the song by Deathcab for Cutie.)
In May I moved out of the house Hal and I shared and into an apartment nearby, thinking that I was moving on, but it soon became apparent that it was a mistake. This summer was the most difficult few months of my life–more difficult even than the first months after Hal died.
In September, I realized what I had to do. Last Friday the movers emptied my apartment, and this morning I turned in my keys. I got into my truck and put an end to the person I was when I knew Hal.
Tomorrow I will be someone else. It will be Day One.
This blog will end now. It was a great help to me to keep it. I hope that those who have read it have found something useful here.
Find me at my new blog: todoratoo.wordpress.com
