"It's beginning to rain, honey..c'mon, come with me...out of the rain, back to the car," the voice was saying, the words, a blend of white noise inside of my head.
Looking over my shoulder as I was being pulled, guided, maybe even carried by my arms, I took my last look, at least for that day, at Jack's raised final resting place in his beloved hometown of New Orleans.
He was with his parents again, his coffin having just been slid into the family vault at one of the oldest cemeteries in The Big Easy.
Heart Attack 'they' had told me on that awful night that Jack's boss and his wife knocked on my door at three in the morning.
"Heart attack? That can't be," I remember protesting, "he's only forty-two...how can it be a heart attack, there must be some mistake," the memory of those exact words fresh and clear in my mind.
There was no mistake.
Jack was gone.
Jack was not coming back to me...ever.
"Here sweetie, take these with a sip of your wine," Vicki said softly as she handed me a couple of 'mild' sedatives given to her, as a precaution.
"Just in case," my doctor said to Vicki when he handed her the pills before we were to leave for the flight to New Orleans.
We were back at our hotel, a small boutique hotel whose brick walls were at least two hundred years old. This was Jack's favorite place to stay whenever we came to visit what little family that was left here after Hurricane Katrina butt-raped the city in '05.
Vicki's room was right next door, close if I needed her help but mostly, private for me and my own thoughts. I was trying frantically to recover bits and pieces of the past ten days and, slowly, but surely, snippets of mind-movies would pop up in my head.
I vaguely remember being asked by Jack's boss, Hank, or was it his wife, Jan? if there was anyone they could call. I must have told them to call my assistant, Vicki, because shortly thereafter, Vicki showed up at my home and took control of my life, thank God.
From that point forward, it was a total and complete blur for me. Vicki handled everything, contacting our home office to inform them of the turn of events. The Chief Operating Officer, and my up-line boss, told Vicki to stay with me throughout the process, that they, the home office, would take care of handling things at our office for the next few weeks.
Vicki made the arrangements for a local funeral home to handle Jack's preparation for shipment and burial in New Orleans. She handled the obit for both the local paper and for posting in the New Orleans paper, made the arrangements for a local memorial service as well as the funeral mass in Louisiana's largest city.
She took care of it all, including packing for the trip, leaving nothing to chance. All I had to do was to grieve and of that, there was plenty.
"Thanks, Vicki, I don't know what I would have done without you," I said in praise of her care-taking.
"Quit it," she admonished, "its what people do for the ones they care about," shrugging off my compliment and graditude, "from this point forward, we concentrate on getting your life back on track and I'll be there to help with that as well."
Of that I had no doubt.
"Have you even thought about how much time you'll need away from the office?" She asked, switching tracks to work-stuff.
"I have...and it'll be sooner rather than later," I replied, "I need to get back to the office, sweetie, I need to get back into routine quickly otherwise I'll just stay home and cry..."
"You've done enough of that already," Vicki interrupted to say, "Jack wouldn't want that, at least, I 'think' he wouldn't."
"You're right, he wouldn't..."
We had talked of this moment, Jack and I, both declaring that if one of us were to go first that we'd want the 'other' to quickly move forward with his or her life, whichever the case.
Talking about it was one thing but, now, the 'what if' had become a reality and a reality that I had to live with.....
Fast forward 6 months...
Life does move forward, with or without you, it's your choice, at the end of the day.
I chose to move forward.
I had returned to the office three weeks after Jack's funeral. It was a bit clumsy at first, my staff all expressing their condolences, for the second or third time in some instances, but they were heart-felt and well-meaning and I accepted them as such.
But, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I welcomed the day that mention of his passing didn't happen. It was then that I felt things had returned to 'normal'.
Except for my sex life, I was still doing without.
Oh, I had offers of sexual relief from Vicki, from Marnie, and even a call from the now, Mindy-less Bob who had 'heard' or read of Jack's passing.
To Bob, it was "Thanks, but no thanks".
To my two GFs, it was more like "Not yet...soon, but not yet."
They understood.
They 'got it'.
But, here I was on a Friday afternoon, six months after I'd buried my husband, getting ready for a weekend in pussy-ville with a woman I had met on the 'net, in a chat room for grief victims.
Her name is Beth. She is forty-eight, looks thirty-eight, and can behave as if she's eighteen.
Our stories were similar, except for the age thing, and our chats and emails eventually led to some Skype sessions, just her and I. Phone calls followed, each interaction between us becoming more personal, more connected on so many different levels.
We met for dinner one night, last week, meeting in person for the first time in our four month relationship. I'm not sure that's the right word for whatever it was we had, but it'll suffice.
Of course I recognized her right away standing outside the restaurant, waiting for me. I approached her from behind, noticing the curvature of her ass in her skirt which hugged her hips and ass nicely. Turning as I approached, our eyes locked, hers on my smiling face, mine on her vee-necked blouse that showed an appropriate amount of freckled cleavage.
