Part 2

Memories of May 29th and beyond. I can't remember if I talked of that day or not, but am going to call this part two anyway. If information is repeated, well, too bad.

Everything was such a rush. It was a rush or just whizzed on by. That week after Jim died. I remember certain things and can't remember some.

Sitting in my kitchen. Lots of family around but no one knew baltimore so i had to look up the funeral home. I could barely see the pages of the phone book. I knew the one we chose was the same one his mother had her service at. And more than likely his father also.
(why do i keep reliving this? so that maybe the nightmare will end. so that i can say, no i want it to end diffrerently.)

I stopped there for awhile and couldn't didn't want to handle the memories again. I decided not to open that pandoras box.

I look over at the picture of jim and i in athens ga and the look on his face makes me smile and cry. He has that goatee and just a sort of tired yet, happy smile. I look at other pictures and he has that same happy smile, yet he doesn't look so tired. I don't know why I didn't realize he was so tired. Why didn't I realize it.

I thought about how as I look back on our life, it seemed like Jim didn't think he was going to live to be an old man. The last five or so years of our time he talked about how I would take care of myself when he was gone. He didn't talk about how we would retire together. He did get his postal job so that we could retire safely, but he didn't talk about it much. He didn't say 'when we have a chance we will go see xxxx or live in xxxx. Though actually until his brother benny died, he did talk about moving down to florida to be closer to him or selling the house and getting an RV to travel in.


I guess it is tough because for all that I had in self confidence and outgoing nature, it was a mask of my feeling like i wasn't as good as the others. The others are all of you. It goes back to that childhood thing that most of us probably know about and have. self esteem.

Jim gave me thru word and deed and touch, the feeling that i was. I was his special girl, his beautiful woman and his exciting love. He needed to be able to have this - a person to give this love too, as much as I needed to receive it. It was not just a him give, me take, but also a me give, him take. our needs complimented each other. At least most of the time. Sometimes our timing was off and things got heated, but I shrug at this because we always hugged in the end and we always realized what we had with each other was not worth messing up.

He was a family guy and missed his relationship with his children. Every night he said prayers and they were first on his list. He loved hanging out with his sister and brothers when he could. He considered friends to be an extension of his family and enjoyed it when he could share time. This usually extended even to employees of his. He was like this umbrella. There were times back almost 15 years ago when we had parties at the townhouse and it was just a bunch of our employees coming over to hang out. Kind of weird but there was some comarderie that helped us to form a great sales team. This happened with Jim from job to job. I can close my eyes, picture the job and remember the people he helped in some way.

Jim had a lot of jobs for one guy in 17 years. He worked hard at them, and I always thought he gave to much. He tried to hard and wasn't as ruthless and cutthroat as others in his same spot. He was starting as an older guy because he was in the Navy for 12 years and served during the Vietnam war. The got him out the gate into the retail management world a bit later than others. His stores did well but something always seemed to happen that squelched success. His one real moment of triumph was a few years back when he asked for and received a transfer to Texas. We were going to move! It was something we both were looking forward too and the move was set for early October. Then. Well, then Katrina hit. The company stores in LA were wrecked. They moved the managers from there right into...texas. Jim was told he had to wait. It was a blow that was not his fault, but still seemed like the black cloud was following us.

I am not sure why I am writing this all out, but in doing so, it is unlocking other memories which is kind of neat. Things I haven't thought of in years pop up and flash into my head. It is a bittersweet road.