Has it Really Been Seven Years?

Seven years seems like such a long time....and yet, August 20th 2007 feels, in many ways, like yesterday.  That's the day I watched my husband walk out the front door with a gun in his hand and didn't get there in time to stop him from bracing the butt of it against a tree and the barrel against his temple and pulling the trigger.

He was the love of my life.  We met in 1984, when he directed his first show at Sam Bass.  It was my second show, and a friendship developed that continued through my divorce, his divorce and our subsequent (separate) love lives, until one day, late in 1997, when it became something else entirely.  At that point, I had known for several years that I loved him, but had given it up as a lost cause.

He asked me to marry him two years later, and we planned a June wedding.  "How about June 11," he said.  It was his mother's and grandmother's wedding day.  I didn't really care what day would be our anniversary, so plans ensued.  We had a lovely little wedding.

His mother died three years after that, and he sort of lost focus.  While I was waiting for him to regain it, he sank into ill health and depression, and, as a result, I am a widow.

No, I am not "over it."  I will never be "over it," but I have accepted it and I realize that I am grateful for what I had.

I am no longer mourning.