Memory becomes less retentive, sometimes drifting in the shadows. There’s a hole in my heart that remains constant. Irving, my husband, my friend, my confidant, is missing from my life. He was the gardener who made my family blossom. I keep his presence and feel closer to him when I imagine him sitting in the living room in his favorite chair and his feet propped up reading the Washington Post.
I descend to his secret, sacred workbench in the basement to retrieve a tool and remember how successful he was with our children’s toys and household broken parts, how he smiled when he presented the shattered parts put back together again. The revolving reclining chair stationed in front of his desk envelops me so tenderly. His rocking chair invites me to watch the television, and in the gray light of our bedroom I hug my pillow and pretend that we are spooning.
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