My Husband

November is not a good month for me. The weather is usually cold and raw, which means that my arthritic joints start giving me trouble. When storms start brewing, I remember my old friend, sciatica. And there are a number of sad anniversaries for our family in this month, including my brother-in-law and a very dear nephew.


Today marks the thirty-third anniversary of my husband's death. His funeral was on the day before Thanksgiving, so that holiday is not the joyous one it used to be. It used to be a very hard day to get through. As they tell us, time does heal, and it is no longer a day for shedding tears. Over the past thirty-three years, I have stopped remembering the terrible and sad things, and instead, spend the time thinking of the wonderful eighteen years we had together. Well, nineteen if you count that year before we were married. So today I intend to celebrate his life, rather than his death. We pretty much had an eighteen year honeymoon. Not that there weren't hard times too, but truthfully, I barely remember them now. Our love always managed to overshadow them. It was fun! It was wonderful! And I wouldn't trade those short eighteen years for a lifetime with anyone else.

Back in March, I wrote a post on Ralph, and I don't want to repeat myself. And I know I've printed some of these photos before - but those I will repeat. I always enjoy looking at old photos again, and maybe you will too.







Now is this a picture, or what? Ralph and his sister and brothers - including his twin. Don't they look angelic?








And here he is, growing up in Hempstead, New York. I love this one!

















Jumping ahead several years, here we are in 1957.




















And here is Ralph with our first,
child, Ruth.
A few years later, Joe and then Rita had been added.



















This is the day we added Charlie to the family. I was about ten months pregnant at the time with Kitty. Ralph had had a heart attack about a dozen years earlier. The first words he said when he learned we were pregnant again were, "I'll never live to see this one grow up." I didn't believe it for a minute.




















Speaking of Kitty - He spent every minute he could with her.


I guess he tried to cram in all the time he could for her to remember.





















This is the terrible Polaroid a neighbor took of the six of us (and the dog and the cat) when Kitty announced at the last minute that she needed a family photo for kindergarten that day.




















Bad as it is, I love this little piece of the picture above. I don't have another of the two of us taken any later. It was a year before he died.












So, I will spend today quietly, and wrap myself in warm memories.



When I did the post in March, I also left a quote from poet, Rabindranath Tagore. I can think of nothing more appropriate:


The butterfly counts not months - but moments - and has time enough.