Remember Stromboli's pizza? I liked sausage and onions, you liked Canadian Bacon and Pineapple. The first time you ordered that combination, I almost puked at the thought of it. I chose to stick to my sausage and onion that evening, not even daring to try a bite of yours.
I finally did try the Canadian Bacon and pineapple one day. I am sure you found some way to dare me into trying it out. I pronounced it good and from then on that was the pizza we ordered together.
I was thinking of you today when I saw a slice of Canadian Bacon and pineapple at L&L up in Eagle Rock. I went up there after a job near the Missouri state line this afternoon to cash in my winning lotto ticket for 3 more Quick Picks on Powerball. I decided I really wanted Canadian Bacon and pinapple pizza for dinner tonight. I wanted to remember the flavor of a time gone by, of a memory.
So I stopped at Sunfest and bought Canadian Bacon, cheese and pizza sauce. I had everything else I needed at home already. I made the pizza. Sue didn't like the pineapple on it. It made me kind of sad. Not that I ever wanted Sue to be like you, but for some reason I wanted her to like that pizza. She didn't.
Driving home, I remembered what you felt like when you passed through me at Gina's wedding. I remembered feeling the love. I remembered you.
What I remembered today was the team we were, how we faced the world head on, shoulders straight, head up, look em in the eye. There was no stopping us, no saying no and expecting us to walk away defeated. We knew what we wanted and we went after it for all we were worth.
We were young, we were strong and all of life was out before us, our eye on the prize.
Nothing ever stays the same though. Life is all about change. Growth. Moving onward and upward. Evolving. Morphing...
There are times I still get so angry and so painfully sad that you ever got so sick. I lost you long before the illness took you away. And when you finally died so many years later it was the finale' to all of the memories of my youth.
The truth is, I cannot imagine you and I having grown old together. Mainly because I cannot imagine you old. You are frozen forever in my mind in our youth. Still strong, still alive. Even sitting there at your death bed watching you die, the machines breathing for you, the tubes giving you sustenance, you still looked youthful. It looked just like you, only sleeping. She's just sleeping. Which is the last memory I have of you. Just sleeping. Peaceful, already dead.
The world has gone on without you Debra Jean. It marched right past your passing without blinking an eye. As it does every day to millions of others, as it will with me.
I am not afraid of death anymore. I have grown on in so many ways since you left your body behind. In fact, there is not much I fear anymore.
I feel like I am sitting on a precipe, looking over the edge into an unknown and greater place than I have ever been right now. I feel on the verge of breaking into this new place, an epiphany awaiting my next breath.
Sometimes I think you are there with me as I grow and evolve. Like I feel your presence speaking to my spirit. There is no such thing as growing old together, because we never grow old, we simply always are, forever.
I know you are there and I know you know I am sad because I cannot communicate with you. Like always, I wait for you to make the first move... you were the one to always make the first moves if you recall. You taught me more than anyone aside from JRS. But in many ways, you taught me even more than he did. I know you are there and I know you have watched over me all this time.
I miss you and I think I need you right now. I need someone who knows me well. Someone who understands how my head ticks. Someone who knows my spirit and always has. I need your wisdom, your ability to know instinctively how to calm my spirit and sooth me.
I'll be hear trying to listen as best I can. The noise of the world is hard to shut off, but you did teach me well. I was just always such a bullheaded learner. But you know that about me.
I'm here.
