The girl on the right has no idea that a few hours later, she’s going to watch her husband get his life saved by his defibrillator/pacemaker right in their living room. She has no idea that the trip to the emergency room that night will be the last time she takes her husband there.
That it is the last week on this planet for her husband.
I miss you more, Gary. I miss you so goddamn much.
This is me, twelve months ago today, mere hours before the very last car ride to Westchester Medical Center with Gary. I was feeling confident in the way I looked, not as confident as I do now, but confident all the same. We had made great strides in our troubled marriage, great strides to understand each other, to try and see and feel where the other person was coming from.
These past 12 months have been incredibly difficult, so hard, so unbelievably hard. I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, how I’m going to be able to survive the rest of my life.
What I do know is that I was as strong as I possibly could be for him, for us. I remember everything that happened as if it happened yesterday. The sound of him coughing from the living room, attempting to avoid being shocked, attempting vasovagal maneuvers is etched into my memory as if it were in the next room right now.
The girl in this photograph is at work, feeling cute, wanting to remember how she looks for the future, when maybe she doesn’t feel quite as cute or as confident.
The girl writing this now is getting ready for work, not feeling confident at all, but knowing that she has to get through another day. All the days. Until she can’t anymore.
The Salty Widow 