It’s been a little over a year since they told me.

“David is dead,”  they said.  But in my hospital bed, drunk on the pain killers and whatever else it was doctors were using to keep ME alive, I felt nothing.  I remember looking from the face of my son John who had said the words, to Ron who was watching, warily, wondering if I could take it, to Jay, David’s beloved husband and my dear friend, who looked as empty as I felt.

Ultimately the emptiness was replaced with pain and pain with fury.

It wasn’t fair!  I should have been there!  What kind of a God would take David away from me without giving me a chance to say goodbye?

And then one quiet evening, Jay knocked on my door.  He didn’t say anything – or at least that’s how I remember it.  He just held out a lovely card,  and smiled.

I took it and read it and then I cried

God, whoever and whatever he means to you, HAD given me my chance to tell David I loved him.

And I had used it as well as I could.  I wrote it down.  In RED ink.  Because everyone knows that things written in red are VERY important.

It was about 10years old this card, but if I were writing to him today, the message would be the same.

Dear David

I want so much to write something really clever here.  I want it to say how much I appreciate having you in my life and how aware I am of all you do for me. – so quietly, so selflessly.

You make it so easy to accept help that one might take it for granted.  And I do sometime.  But I don’t mean to.  Ever!

I am forever aware that you have brought something kind and wonderful to my world,  You make it possible for me to believe there is still grace in the world.

In the past, when I would do something nice for someone, I frequently felt unappreciated.  Then someone would say to me, “What goes around comes around.”  Personally I felt you had to   do good things because you want to – or have to – to live with yourself.

Then you arrived in my life – and if you are my payback, I won the jackpot.

Thank you so much for all of that.

I love you dearly.

Betty.

AMEN