The darnedest thing

I was paying for something online, and I got to the part where the numbers of my card’s expiration date are Janice’s birthday. Every time I have to enter that date, I’m reminded of my late wife. I don’t mind being reminded of her—fortunately, since it happens many times every day—though the distraction tends to slow me down.

This time, after I put in the card number and expiration date, in the box for my first name I absently keyed in J-a-n- . . . and stopped for a long time, unable to do anything. I didn’t weep. It was something different this time, a kind of meditation, acknowledging Janice obviously being a part of me because I miss her. If I were whole, I wouldn’t miss that part of me. That’s what I figure, except I know I’m whole anyway. I just don’t feel it.

You may remember reading here about my being in a Relationship and how I wasn’t gonna discuss any of our intimate details, no matter how salacious, and what a character she was and some more thickly veiled allusions to what I once referred to as a special friend. Well, it’s the darnedest thing. It turns out that those seeming references and apparent mentions were actually typos. I didn’t mean to mislead you, and I promise to pay closer attention in the future.

I used to wonder if another Relationship would somehow distract me from my grief over, for, about and around Janice. I’m tired of being a widower. I expect to have only so much room for a woman in what’s left of my life, so maybe a new one would nudge Janice aside in my mind, leaving my head at least no more jam-packed than before. Not exactly.

Women take up as much space in my mind as I allow, like the rest of Creation, I suppose. Admittedly, some women spend more time in my mind’s eye than others, and you don’t have to be present to participate.

Some of missing Janice is missing a permanent ally, a partner. I’ve compared losing her to losing a leg, implying pain and slow recuperation and adjustment. Nowadays it’s more like not having most of the fingers on my left hand. I can do most things easily and often don’t feel crippled at all, except if I have to carry something heavy or turn a doorknob or open a stuck jar or any of the several tasks that require more left-hand fingers than I can supply. Then I have a hard time.