It's just a little spider, Mate!

Dear Dazzy,

Yes, I finally washed the car, finally went food shopping, finally cleaned the floors-woohoo! Maybe I won't be stuck in this sad and lonely rut forever, eh?

I am having a really tough time finding joy in increments of more than a nanosecond at a time.

Tonight, for example, I was washing my car. Something you used to do every Sunday for me...and yeah, the car-washing/pimping out your ride on Sunday arvo/night is kind of a ritual in the W household.

So I continue it as best I can. Makes me feel connected to you when I do this on Sundays.

Sometimes, for a brief second, it will feel like you are simply down the street at the gas station, getting petrol for the upcoming week. Looking under the bonnet to check the oil and in the boot for any stray trash, busio cards with phone numbers, etc.

Complaining about the bloody prices at the pump and how much it must cost back home...

How I miss your accent! The Aussie strine! That deep, sexy voice.

I remember the day I heard you say fair dinkum in an actual sentence, in a real conversation. I about peed my pants laughing! You hated the whole Crocodile Dundee thing, saying it wasn't how Aussies really spoke, etc. HA!

I know that was not a phrase you used all the time but still-it was great.

I loved it.

It was one of those special memories that you don't think twice about at the time, but now that you are not here, well, I find little things like that tucked away in my brain all the time. I find them and allow them into my everyday thoughts and admire them, then tuck them away for a time when I will need to experience them again.

Memory is an amazing, wonderful thing. It's both happy and sad for those of us who have lost a loved one. Eventually, the happy triumphs over the sad. Otherwise , we, as humans, would lose what sanity we do have, for loss would be all that we would remember.

Loss comes to us all-we just ignore it until it happens. I know I never thought about it much with regard to us; I knew you and I were destined for the old folks home on Phillip Island or in Rosebud back in Oz. I knew it. I knew that it had taken so long to find you and you to find me that we would be rewarded with an opportunity for a wonderful life.

It was wonderful, babe-it was just much too short!

"Quick," you'd write, -"what's a sheila, a hornbag, a lamington?"

I would laugh as I wrote back silly answers, then I would ask you:

"Just where in the hell IS the black stump, why do you want something onya, and who's mate is everyone yakking about?"

You made me laugh every single day we talked-which was every single day of the last almost eight years. You were probably laughing tonight, though, as I spied the HUGE spider web that's set up front and center at our house -it goes from the front tree to the nandina bushes!

I laughed because I thought of you decorating for Halloween, LOL

Among many other things, you always used to put the giant purple spider up in that blinking web in the tree (I know you really bought it to torture Ash with since she has that weird spider thingy going on) but I just cannot bear to open all the Halloween boxes out in the garage, let alone put stuff up. Not this year.

So nature-and you, probably-put up this natually spooky spider web. I took a piccie of it for me to remember; years from now I hope it can bring me a smile once again, and that I will be able to reminisce once again about my larrikin hubby who outdid everyone on the block with his Halloween decorations while calling everyone mate and meaning it.

This week I am talking to Nan (the medium) one more time and bracing myself for Halloween.

It will be a day we used to have so much fun dressing up for; I am not sure how I will feel that day. We'll see eh?

The kids are coming home next weekend (YEA!). We change the clocks and then BAM it's the holidays and a new year will be staring us in the face. I still cannot fathom that I have to do all of that without you, honey. Its too much sometimes; I think oh no, it's too hard to deal with, just too much to bear.

Then I hear your voice saying, " No worries, wifey! It's O.K., she'll be riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight..."

I always believed you when you said that, honey. I still do. I have to.

Love you Dazzles. Always.

Kisses, Wifey