To Thin With White Levis

J Matson Heininger

This are comments I wrote of my departed wife... left so quickly from health to departure, in less than six months from Cancer.

With Death
I see her in the sunlight shadows and in the corners of light, a glimpse, a memory a thought a smell, a bump in the night. These still all are Deb for me. I find myself waking at 11:00 and at three, in search of her. Where has she got to now? It is time for medicine. And then I remember, she no longer needs it. It will work no more if it ever did, she is gone, gone, gone, and then I cry some more. I cry for myself and for generations passed, for all those before and after me, who if they are lucky enough to have so loved a woman will feel the pain that I now feel. And, I don?t envy them the pain, but I envy them the love...it hurts so much...what a pain to envy, but yet, I do because all coins have two sides. There is a Yin and Yang to everything and with great love must by need come great sorrow at passing... Somehow it becomes, it is, and it contains the definition. Looking for her...to find her outside, wandering, I must find her, I must find her...it is time for her medicine.

In the days, in the evenings in every hour she is present still and immediate to my thoughts. She is the hamburger not cooked, the salad not made, the glass of milk empty. She is gone and it is so hard to face. I cannot. I smile and look for her smile. I frown and look for her frown. I think and search for her thoughts. I look and see her still in everything... Oh what sweet a beauty she was, what a package of perfections flawed, what a package that was for me perfection.

I sense that this will be always, but I hope the always comes eventually without so much pain. I have only so many tears. Some days I think I must have used them all, when then- surprise, surprise, ducts pour more and vision blurs, so much? I cannot find my entrance key.

Too thin and dressed in white Levis ( I wrote this to be easy to read)

We first met
It was the summer solstice
I carried two bags of sails
She, alone
Behind the Sail loft?s counter
A seamstress of wind
And wave, of water

?Can you fix these sails?
You should read my
Novel? I said.

I talked too much
And gave her a card
?I must go golfing?, she said

What can you expect?
I thought
It?s Harbor Springs
Of course she must? Golf
It sits in my head as clear as yesterday
Golf of course it would be golf.
Too bad and she looked interesting.


Golf: That sport I had quit playing with disdain
Golf -The sport of lazy men and lazy dollars
Of Country Club men driving carts not tanks
Making my generation do their killing.
To keep those dominoes up right.
Their apple pies crisp
Their Cadillacs content in so many rich garages.


To my surprise she called a few days later
I read your novel. Will you sign it?

Come to the signing, I had said, the local bookstore, 6:30
There she was from the corner of my eye
I was reading passages of the novel to a group of woman.
I looked up and she looked down
Giving me a gaze of amusement.
Then she asked me for an autograph and invited me to dinner.
.

Strange, so strange, Goodhart, a deck, the lake beyond. Two men in their seventies or eighties.
Tan as Harbor Springs and loaded I surmised.
Clearly Conservatives with large amber drinks I their hands, and I in my beard, a liberal, and non-drinker, out of place, the deck was made of teak.

Later we walked along the beach.
I remember Deb trying to get me to talk.
I, one foot before the other thinking.
Should I involve myself?
Will it be good for me; will it be good for her?


One foot before the other until my toes dug into the sand and I spoke back.
We were together from that moment forward until, until?until.
Deb and I from that moment on together until
Last Tuesday

It Be Just Alright is the title of that book.
And now she has left me lonely
And it will never Be Just Alright again.

Lately my thoughts grab me in the dark stealing my sleep. I wonder now if I will ever sleep again. .
How can Deb be gone possibly be that she.
The most valuable person in any room for me.


Pilot, skier, golfer, athlete
College instructor, business manager, consultant
Lover.

Deb could wear a rag and make it chic
She could drape the over done and give it sense
Deb, my wonderful wife and gone now. I will miss her so.

But in my thoughts
She will exist
Through my forevers
I can see her in my minds eye now
Beautiful and beaming, cooking, caring,
dancing down a mountain.
Crystal sparkles in the air, the Colorado sunshine
Dancing with beautiful acceleration,
gorgeous GS turns.
Or challenging the steepest slopes.
Hitting a golf ball, her swing perfection.

?Just slide in backwards?, I said
?And when you get to the cliff
Jump and spin. You must carry fifteen feet, then it is easy
Only fifty degrees- too steep for moguls. Watch I?ll show you.?

Deb watched and followed
Now? how many ladies can do that.
While all the time waiting to give you a piece of their mind
When we reached the bottom.

?You ass?, I remember her saying.
?You ass!?
And could she ski. And this when she was 56 and 57.

She died too young- weeks short of sixty-two
Think of Deb and she will live on
In spirit, in memory
In the pictures of our minds

I know, I see her watching from over there. Look left, right, in the shadow, in the corner? there.
A Chimera? real or imagined.
It maters not
living in the eyes of our minds.

Deb, It is all so sad ?. We miss you.

I miss you more than any here can
Know.