The butterfly

On my daily bike ride, I see butterflies. Usually one will fly around me as I'm doing my laps at the park, and usually it's a monarch.

Call me crazy (you won't be the first), but I think it's the same one every day.

I think about it a lot. I think about how it started out as a lowly creature that underwent a transformation and now is a being of beauty.

It reminds me of Deb.

I'm not saying she's the butterfly. If reincarnation is the way of the afterlife, she'd want to come back as a cat or a tiger. She might even want to come back as a bird so she can crap all over her first husband. But she never cared for insects.

But I can see her sending butterflies my way. She knows I'm big on omens.

Thursday was her birthday. I bought a birthday balloon and taped a little note to it. "Happy birthday. I miss you more than I can say. Love, Tim." I took it to the park and let it go. I watched it clear the trees and drift into the clouds until I couldn't see it anymore. Then I started my ride.

A couple of laps in, I saw the butterfly.

Happy Birthday!

Sweetie,

Happy birthday! I miss you more than I can say.

With all the love I possess,
Tim

p.s. The kitties say, "Meow."

The Debra Haiku

Debra A. Franco
Was her name when I met her
I miss her so much

The worst of times, the best of times

So I was at hanging out at home one night when the phone rang. It was Deb. We had only been dating a couple of months at this point.

She sounded awful. She wanted me to come over because she had been puking all night and she wanted to go to the emergency room.

I raced over. When I got there, she looked ragged. Dark circles around her eyes, stringy hair and ... well, she smelled.

The effort to get up to open the door brought on more nausea, so I helped her into the bathroom and stood by as she puked some more. She kept apologizing for how she looked and smelled. I told her I knew what I was getting into when she called, that I didn't expect her to be all dolled up or anything.

She grabbed a plastic grocery bag in case she puked some more, and we headed to the E.R. It was a slow night there, and we were only there for about three hours. They diagnosed it as food poisoning (ironically, Deb had been doing temp work at the hospital and had eaten lunch there, so the same hospital that made her sick was now telling her how to get better). They prescribed some anti-nausea medication and sent her home. It was about 1 in the morning by then.

I took her up to her place and tucked her in, then went to get her prescription filled at the 24-hour Walgreens. While I was waiting, I went to a nearby supermarket and bought her some saltine crackers and Gatorade, my usual anti-nausea prescription. Then I went back to her place and sat with her for a while, then went home.

Pretty cruddy night all around, sure. But I remember it for this reason:

Deb said that was the night she realized she loved me.

Not bad for three hours' work.

Survivor

I am a cancer survivor.

No, I didn't have the chemicals pumped through my veins, but I went through chemotherapy.

No, I didn't have radiation shot at my chest, but I went through radiation therapy.

No, I didn't take the drug cocktails, but I went through drug treatment.

I held Deb's hand through the whole thing. I gave her as much of my strength as I could. When she was in pain, I comforted her. When she was in need, I attended to her. When cancer took her away, I felt the loss.

And I'm still here.

I won't accept congratulations for it, though. Congratulations are for those lucky enough to have cancer visited on them and survived. Congratulations are for those who stand by their loved ones and have them to hold when it's all over.

I've had people tell me how brave and strong I was to go through this thing with Deb, how others might have run away. Even Deb would tell me that, and she would thank me for it.

I never accepted her thanks or anyone's applause. That would have been wrong.

I know there are people who have run away and abandoned those who love them at the time they needed them the most. I've heard enough horror stories from being in the news business to know there are people like that.

For me, though, it was never a choice. I loved Deb, and for me to be anywhere else but by her side was unthinkable. Being with her was as necessary for my survival as it was for her to be with me. You can't thank a person for doing what was in their best interest.

The only title or honor I will ever accept is that of survivor. I went through the worst thing that I will ever through, and I'm still here. I don't fear what comes next, because nothing can be as bad as what I've been through. In fact, chances are it'll be better.

I'm a survivor.

Promises

If I had a blog about my father, this would go there. Since I don't, this will have to do.

My father would have turned 89 on July 7. He was 48 when I was born, and back then it was still unusual to be a first-time father when you were that old. It didn't make for a typical father/son relationship. Most of the time, people mistook him for my grandfather. We didn't play catch or go fishing. He worked all the time.

Besides that, he wasn't an easy person to get to know. He didn't talk about his past too much because he was unhappy with it. Even my mother doesn't know all that much about it, and she was married to him for 30 years.

What I do know was he was first-generation Chinese, born in Canton. He came to the U.S. when he was 8 or so, when Chinese immigrants were not welcomed. He came in on a iffy passport that said he was 11. His father already was here, and he sent for his sons.

As little as I know about my father's past, I know even less about my grandfather. I found an old newspaper article in Yuma about his dying. The way my father told it, he had gotten drunk, cut his foot badly and bled to death because he couldn't get help.

My father followed in his footsteps in one respect: he was an alcoholic. He was a functional one, so he could get up in the morning and go to work as a meat cutter, but on his way home he'd buy a pint of whiskey and drink it all. Worst of all, he was an angry drunk. He didn't hit, but he would yell and curse. My sister got the worst of it because she's strong-willed while I just stayed out of the way. Again, this didn't make our relationship easier.

To top it all off, I was a pretty weird kid. I was bright, to be sure, but I was also, as the report cards put it, "super sensitive." I didn't like to be wrong, and took it badly when I was. I spent most of my time reading by myself. I didn't get into sports and I didn't make a lot of friends. At home, I liked to just be in my room, listening to music or, of course, reading. Again, not a relationship builder.

I don't mean to paint a picture of him as the world's worst father. He had his redeeming qualities. For one, he loved Christmas. He'd shout, "Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas! Jingle bells, jingle bells, Batman smells!" at 3 in the morning on Christmas day. It was never a matter of waiting til morning to open presents with us. When he started yelling, it was time to rip 'em open.

Sometimes he'd tell me he loved me. Not often, but he did. And when I taught myself how to read when I was 4, he trotted me down to the store where he worked and showed his co-workers by having me read the poster showing the cuts of meat. I knew he was proud of me.

But still, when I grew up I got out of the house as soon as I could. By that time, the drinking had caught up with him. He stumbled around a lot, finally using a cane and then a walker after he fell down too many times and broke a hip. He'd pee himself sitting in his chair. When he couldn't get the alcohol anymore, he stopped drinking, and became a little more lucid. But he was also mostly deaf, and you had to shout to talk to him.

Those last few years before he had the stroke and died were hard to bear. But it was during those years that I found the piece of my father that I carry with me to this day.

About a year before he died, he broke his hip again but refused to go to the hospital. I would come over and stay with him while my mother would go shopping. Mostly he'd just sleep, calling out when he wanted something to eat or drink or help to go to the bathroom.

One time when he called out, it wasn't for that. When I got back to the bedroom, he told me, "I want to tell you something."

What, I asked.

"Don't be afraid of living."

It was the first time he'd ever said anything like that to me.

"You spend too much time by yourself, living in your own head. You can't live life in your room. You have to go out your front door to do that."

I didn't know what to say.

"Promise me you won't be afraid of living."

I promised.

I don't carry many great memories of my father, but I carry that one.

There are three great promises I have made in my life. "Til death do you part," I fulfilled. I promised Deb on her deathbed that I would be OK, and I'm still working on that.

The promise I made to my father, though, is the one that's closest to my heart.

After the scream

It's been two weeks since the visit to Deb's grave. I think I'm ready to say there has been acceptance.

I tried talking to her once or twice, but she's not answering. I know she can hear me, but she and I know it's time to go beyond that kind of communication. She speaks to me through feelings and memories, not with her presence.

We continue to have a relationship, and there's no breaking that up. But I'm still here, and I have things to do, people to see and odd bits of poetry to write. And she knows it, so she's let me know it's time to go on. I'll see her on up the road.

I'll still write here. There are still stories to tell about Deb and me. But I'll be doing it less out of a sense of obligation than for pleasure. Thinking about her doesn't make me cry anymore. She never did anything that caused me pain while she was here, and that will always be true.

Thanks, Sweetie.

The scream

There I was, standing over Deb's grave.

I was talking to her as I have been for the past nine months, telling her what I'd been doing, how the cats were doing, the usual things.

Then I read her tombstone.

It was the first time I had been there with the headstone in place. Seeing her name, her birthdate and the day she died in stone ... suddenly, it was real.

My wife is dead.

I don't know if I've been holding back as a defense mechanism, because I didn't want to truly face it, or if somewhere in my mind I was still hoping someone would tell me it's all been a horrible understanding, but I finally felt it click.

Deb's not coming back.

I started weeping. First a few sniffles, then a few tears, then full body heaves.

Then I screamed.

I didn't mean to scream. I just didn't know what else to do. There was no other way to express what I was feeling.

I don't know how to describe it except, and I don't mean this as a joke, it was like when Christopher Reeve screamed after Margot Kidder died in the first Superman movie.

It was a moment of total agony, and the only way I could let it out was a scream.

I went blind. I was in a rage. I put everything I had into that scream.

Then it stopped. I had nothing else to give. Or maybe I've exorcised the demon of grief that's been possessing me.

I won't say I felt better, but I did feel something resembling relief.

I don't feel Deb's presence any more. It's too early to say I've really let her go, but it's starting to feel that way. That's not to say I won't talk to her every now and then, or that she won't come to see me in my dreams, but I'm finally ready to say she's not here. And she's not going to be, except in my mind and spirit.

Everything has a price, and I guess the price I have to pay to move on with my life is to let her be a part of my past, and the best way to honor her is by making a future.

Perhaps this is acceptance.

Or perhaps just the echoes of a scream.

The shrine

I have a shrine to Deb in a corner of the dining room. Seemed like a good place for one.

On the wall on top, of course, is THE photo. You can read about it here.

Beneath that is a photo of Deb with an elephant. She wrote a story about a circus when she was reporting in Miami, and she always talked about getting to ride the elephant. Going through her things, I found the negative of this shot of her reaching for the elephant's trunk. It was such a cool shot, I couldn't help getting a copy.

The Winnie the Pooh dolls were bought one by one. I bought most of them at Wal-Mart on the way home from work, then I'd surprise her with them. The Kanga doll I had to get on eBay, the Owl doll she bought herself at Disney World.

The Muppet Statler and Waldorf dolls were presents to me from her. She knew how much I like the Muppets, and I think she was eventually going to get me a whole set.

Under the Eeyore doll is a smaller Eeyore that's actually part of a hair scrunchy Deb liked to wear.

The toy Mini Coopers I got her for Christmas. She kept saying she wanted a Mini Cooper for Christmas, so I got her two. She got a third one from her mother, but it got lost.

The glasses cases have her glasses in them. Her wallet is in the coin bowl, along with her asthma huffer, the watch I gave her and, strangely enough, a bunch of coins.

The mug is from the last trip we took to Disney World. The thing next to it is a candle from Grand Turk that I bought on the cruise we were going to take together.

In the background you'll notice the sofa is in the process of being demolished by the cats. The process was started long ago by Boo Kitty. I figure it's a lost cause, so I let the cats go to town on it.

I suppose if I started dating I'd have to take it down or find a less-conspicuous place for it. For now, I usually sit on the floor across from it, look up at THE picture and tell her how my day went. And she listens. And all is right with the world.

A random memory

The annual reunion of my mother's family is coming up next weekend. As far as these things go, it's usually a good time, watching the people who harbor deep-seated grudges against each other for 364 days a year put it aside for a couple of hours to have some chicken and potato salad.

Deb and I planned our wedding for the reunion weekend of 2004. We originally thought of doing it at the reunion itself, which was on a Saturday, but then we figured we'd surprise my mother and do it the day no one would have expected -- the day after. So on Saturday we just relaxed and had the aforementioned potato salad and chicken.

At one point, guitars were grabbed and singing commenced. That was a cue Deb could never resist.

She didn't know the words to too many of the country songs the guitar players knew, but she promised to learn some before the next reunion.

The next two years, she was too sick to go. This will be the first one I go to without her.

Not In The Mood

OK, it was Christmas 2001, our first real Christmas together (we met on Dec. 8, 2000, but if I had bought her a lot of presents that Christmas I would've looked creepy and desperate, and it was way too early in the relationship to show her that side of me).

We'd been dating for a year, but ... well, it was still in the "are-we-gonna-be-friends-or-lovers" stage, mostly because she still wasn't sure I was going to turn into a jerk like her first husband. We'd kissed and held hands, but as far as more ... OK, I was chicken-s**t. Things were going so well, I wasn't going to be the one to screw up everything by putting my hand up and going, "Pardon me, but are we going to get naked anytime soon?"

That first year was pretty strange, let me tell you.

Anyway, it was Christmas, and I didn't know what to get her. I mean, what do you get someone you like a lot but don't want to scare off by getting something TOO nice. Plus you don't want to overspend because if you buy them, say a nice watch, and they get you a T-shirt, you make them feel bad, and Deb was definitely making just enough money to get me a T-shirt.

So I was shopping in a toy store (she loved toys) and I saw mood rings.

For those of you too young to know, mood rings were a craze in the '70s. The stone in it is heat-sensitive or something and changes color, which is supposed to reflect your mood. When it's black you're feeling down, but when it turns green you're happy, or something like that.

I thought, perfect gift. Not by itself, mind you, but it's campy, it's fun, it's nostalgic, and I could even make the joke that she couldn't say I never got her jewelry because I had bought her a ring.

I even had an jewelry box I could put it in. And over the next couple of weeks, when she asked what I was getting her, I'd tell her things like it was small enough to fit in her hand and it was something she could wear.

In retrospect, I see the mistakes I made:
1. Women don't joke about jewelry.
2. When you show them a jewelry box, the one thing they don't want to see inside it is a mood ring.
3. Girlfriends don't joke about jewelry.
4. Don't save the joke gift for last.
5. Women, especially those who have just started to think, "This guy is THE ONE," don't f*****g joke about jewelry.

After that, she did joke with some friends that I had bought her a ring and let them think it was a big deal, and she did admit that it wasn't the right time for me to get her an engagement ring, but she also occasionally would pull out the "You gave me a MOOD ring" line whenever she wanted me to feel guilty.

And yes, she did get me a T-shirt.

I never did find out what happened to the mood ring. I strongly suspect she threw it in a lake, probably the same lake she wanted to throw me in when I gave her the thing.

So remember, mood rings make bad presents. And don't joke about jewelry.

Things I'm glad we did get to do (again, a very partial list)

Get married.
Take that dolphin-sighting cruise.
Go karaoke.
Let her meet my mother.
Spend that night in the bed and breakfast.
Go to Disneyland.
See Billy Joel, even if he made us cry.

Things I'm sorry that we never got to do (a very partial list)

Go to Alaska.
Go to Ireland.
Get her that Mini Cooper.
See "Avenue Q" on Broadway.
Take her back to my hometown and get her a machaca burrito at the Chile Pepper.
Introduce her to my friends back in Yuma.
Buy her something at Tiffany's.
Take her to a salon after her hair grew back.
Fall asleep together on the couch.
See the Grand Canyon.
Sit on the porch of the little house we were going to get on the Colorado plain and watch the sunset together when we were 80.
Grow old together.

The Legendary Boo Kitty

The story goes that one day Deb was in the mood to buy a fish, so she headed to the pet store. When she got there, she saw a sign that advertised a free kitten with the purchase of cat supplies. She hadn't thought of getting a cat; the only ones she had known were the feral ones that lived around the farm she grew up on. But she decided right there to get a cat.

She checked out the bin they had the kittens in, and there were a bunch of them acting cute, as if to say, "Pleeeeeease take us home." In the corner, by himself, was a mostly black cat trying to take a nap.

Deb looked at him. He opened his eyes, as if to say, "Can you believe how dumb those other cats are?"

She fell in love right there.

That was how she met the legendary Boo Kitty.

She took him home, and while most cats will hide somewhere for a few days after they get a new home, Boo took to his new surroundings immediately. He strutted around the place like he owned it. Later, he curled up on her shoulder, and they were never apart after that.

Somewhere along the line, a photographer with Cat Fancier magazine saw Boo at a vet's office and wanted him to be in a photo spread. Deb turned it down; she didn't want Boo to get a swelled head.

Deb told me several times after we got together that she would get rid of me before she got rid of the cat. I never doubted it.

Boo, she told me, was the reason she kept going when her life wasn't going so well. Whenever she thought of killing herself (considering she had depression, it's no surprise), she thought about Boo and realized he needed someone to take care of him.

Boo was diagnosed as diabetic when he was 6. Most cats only last a couple of years after a diagnosis, and most people won't go through the effort of keeping a diabetic cat alive. Deb wasn't most people. She gave that cat insulin shots every day for the next 12 years. To almost the end, whenever we took him to the vet, she'd get compliments on how healthy the cat was.

I never really cared for cats that much, and when Deb and I first met, I wasn't that taken with Boo. He was an old cat by then, about 14. Whenever I'd go to Deb's place, he'd look at me and then go to the next room. Sometimes he'd come sniffing around me, but if I tried to pet him, he'd back off.

When Deb and I were moving in together, I and some friends went to her place to move her furniture. The plan was for me to put Boo in his carrier and take him to the new place after we emptied it. That cat wouldn't come near me, and when I tried, he bared his teeth and swiped at me. That cat wasn't going anywhere with me. Finally I had Deb come over and do it.

Eventually, when the three of us were under the same roof, the cat started warming up to me. Maybe because I had stronger hands, but when he finally let me pet him, he started acting more like a pussycat with me. Whenever I started scratching his back, he started licking whatever was handy. The furniture, the carpet, my leg ... he licked it like it was a lollipop. Deb accused me of stealing her cat.

I pretended not to like the cat. I kept joking we were going to have to let him loose, like the lion on "Born Free." We'd turn him out one night and let him roam free, like the proud jungle beast he was meant to be. Deb didn't buy it.

Deb was diagnosed with cancer and scheduled to start chemo. The night before the first treatment, Boo started acting strangely. First he had a seizure, then he started running in a circle. We bundled him up and took him to an animal emergency clinic. About 2 in the morning, after running some tests, we were told he had had a stroke. There was no treatment. Boo might go on for a while, but we'd never know when he'd have another seizure. Deb knew she couldn't let him go through another seizure, so we decided to put him down.

It was the passing of a torch. Deb was now my responsibility, not his.

That was the only time I told that cat I loved him. I thanked him for taking care of Deb up until then, and I promised I would take care of her from then on.

Deb held Boo as they injected the drugs, and she held him as he died. We had him cremated and brought the ashes home later.

Before Deb died, we were talking one day about what we wanted to have happen if something happened to one of us. She told me she wanted to be buried with Boo. I asked her if she meant beside her. No, she told me. She wanted his ashes mixed with hers.

That's what I did. Of course, that means since I want my ashes mixed with hers, I'm going to be mixed up with that crazy cat again.

Somewhere, I know Deb gets a giggle out of that thought.

Strike up the band

I know I go on and on about Deb and me like we were 100% compatible. For the most part, we were. We really were. We had our disagreements, but we never went to bed angry, and we had our areas where we agreed to disagree.

One of them was music.

We kept the radio in the car set on classic rock stations, a good safe middle ground. If I ventured to the hard rock station, she'd tune it out. If she ventured to the easy listening station, I tuned it out. Not that I dislike easy listening, but she had a better appreciation of it. Same with hard rock. She liked Guns n' Roses, but not so much Metallica. Let's not get started on the Beastie Boys, except to say I think they're geniuses and she didn't.

I figure the best way to know a person's music taste these days is to go through their iPod and see what comes up. Unfortunately, that won't work with her because I picked most of the songs on her iPod. She never got around to learning how to program songs on it. I bought her an iTunes card, but she never used it herself. After we saw "Wicked" she wanted the cast recording, so I used the card to get that. Otherwise, her only request was I put on the soundtrack to "Amadeus" so she could have some Mozart to listen to when she was getting her chemo. I filled the rest of it with 80s music, Pat Benatar and Bette Midler, because I knew she liked that stuff.

Here's some of her CDs. Maybe that will give some insight.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, The Best Of George Michael"
She still had a George Michael t-shirt when I went through her belongings. She saw him on the Faith tour and called it one of the best shows she ever saw. And she didn't care if he was gay, she still thought he was cute.

"Crimes of Passion," "Go" -- Pat Benatar
I think if she could have been somebody else, Deb would have been Benatar. We went to see her perform, and Deb didn't sit down for one song. I couldn't stop her if I wanted to. "Dance like no one's watching," that was her motto.

"Gloria Estafan Greatest Hits," "1's" -- Mariah Carey
Deb's not-so-secret wish was to be a diva.

"Jagged Little Pill," "Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie" -- Alanis Morissette
After her first marriage, a little man-hating music isn't a surprise.

"Cracked Rear View" -- Hootie and the Blowfish
This one's in everyone's CD collection, isn't it? I think it's a law.

"Bigger, Better, Faster, More!" -- 4 Non Blondes
Is there a woman who lived through the 1990s and didn't sing along to "What's Up"? If there was, I don't want to meet her.

"Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics" -- George Carlin
This one surprised me. I think I only heard her use the F-word maybe five times. Go f----in' figure.

"Sheryl Crow," "The Globe Sessions" -- Sheryl Crow
I lent these to her when we was dating. She never gave them back. I married her so I could get them back.
OK, not JUST for that, but I can't deny it was a plus.

Things I learned from Deb

Aside from teaching me what true love was like, she passed along some helpful hints and little-known bits I hereby pass along:

1. Looking for a good place to eat? Look for the cop cars.
Well, not with the lights flashing. She meant police officers know where to get a good meal and good service, because when they're on patrol they don't have a lot of time to stop and eat. When you find a place they frequent, it's a good sign the food is good enough to bring them back and the service is fast enough to get them on their way.

2. The human brain is gray and can pop out of the head.
She was a police reporter in Miami, and she sometimes would describe the scene after a guy jumped off a building. The brain, which was a few yards away from the rest of the body, was the part of the story that stayed with her.

3. When a horse has his ears back, he's unhappy.
She knew her way around a horse, and knew this was a tipoff of an unhappy creature. Watching old Westerns, I can see there were a lot of unhappy horses in Hollywood.

4. Pink Floyd can control the weather.
She went to see them in the 90s in Miami, and it started to rain, and it let up just as they were finishing "Dark Side of the Moon." Right on cue. Better than a light show.

5. Katie Couric is evil.
In 1999, Deb went to Columbine to cover the massacre. It was first thing in the morning, cold as hell, and she hadn't had her coffee. She went over to the NBC crew to ask for a cup. Couric was there and acting like a prima donna. I don't know if Couric personally refused to give her a cup or if Deb just witnessed her being a witch, but after that Deb detested the woman. And if you diss my lady, you've made an enemy in me. So Katie is evil.

Movie time

In no particular order, some of Deb's favorite movies:

"True Grit" -- She was raised with horses and she loved Westerns, and she agreed with me that John Wayne was underrated as an actor.

"Benny & Joon" -- Johnny Depp.

"Chocolat" -- Johnny Depp.

"Pirates of the Carribean" -- Orlando ... nah, just kidding. You know who.

"Lady and the Tramp" -- She loved Disney movies, including "Sleeping Beauty," "Bambi" and "Cinderella," but she especially loved this one because of the Siamese cats.

"Dracula" -- The original Bela Lugosi one.

North By Northwest, Rope and Rear Window -- She loved Hitchcock.

But her all-time, beyond-any-doubt favorite movies?

First, The Wizard of Oz. I think she really wanted to be Judy Garland when she grew up.

But most of all, "Breakfast at Tiffany's." When we took a trip to L.A., she insisted we go to Rodeo Drive, and when we found out there was a cafe in front of the Tiffany's there, she further insisted we eat there. We had $15 salads, so she could say she had brunch at Tiffany's.

What's to explain? The heroine is an independent, free-spirited romantic with a cat. That's my Deb. If they made a movie about her life, it's just too bad Audrey Hepburn isn't around to be in it.

The Dream

In my support group, the others all talked about The Dream.

Most of them had dreamt that their loved one had come back in a dream so vivid, they were sure it wasn't a dream. They knew it was more than a dream ... it was a visit.

I listened to these stories and wished I could have The Dream.

This morning, I did.

There she was, as real as the keyboard I'm typing on. I took her hand to kiss it, but instead she pressed it to her lips first, then I kissed her hand.

Then I just gazed at her face for a while. It took me a moment to realize it was the same, but different. She wasn't the cancer-worn woman she was when we parted, but she was young again, without a wrinkle, without a care.

I reached up and caressed her cheek, and I ran my thumb along her chin. She smiled.

I told her I'd like nothing more in the world than to hold her again, and we hugged.

That's when my brain started kicking in. I started telling myself this was a dream. It felt real, but it was a dream. Maybe it was time for her to go.

I woke up smiling.

Six months later ...

Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl. They found each other and fell in love. Then the girl got sick, and she died. The boy was very sad.

I'm still working on the ending.

Some Infrequently Asked Questions

Q. When did you and Deb meet, move in together, get married, etc.?
A. A brief timeline:
Dec. 8, 2000 -- Deb and I meet on my birthday at Olive Garden when we show up separately with friends.
Dec. 10 -- After spending a couple of days working up some nerve, I ask our friend Erin for her phone number. After spending an hour working up more nerve, I call her. She's not home. I go to work and find that she has called me while I was driving in. We make a lunch date.
Shortly after -- We have the lunch date. Seems to me it was a Monday.
2001 -- We date frequently, but since she is distrustful of men after a series of bad relationships, we start out as friends. I start showing up at her place on Sunday afternoons with bagels and we read the newspaper together. I meet her mother. Deb and I go ice skating, the only time we did that. Her mother and sister visit. Sometime that summer I tell her I love her. It takes her a while to believe me. Eventually, she does.
New Year's Eve 2001 -- We ... um ... start a tradition. Use your imagination.
March 2002 -- Her car is repossessed. Our first real crisis. I help her find a used car.
Juneish 2002 -- Deb has been working days while I've been working nights. We have little time together. I make a fateful decision: I ask her to shack up with me. She agrees. We find a house and agree to split the rent. Then on the day we are to sign the lease, she is let go from her job. Undaunted, we find a cheaper place and move in together.
New Year's Eve 2002 -- The tradition continues.
January 2003 -- Deb finds a new job. She keeps it until we leave Colorado.
Spring 2003 -- We visit Disneyland.
Sometime in fall -- We visit my mother. She approves of Deb.
Dec. 7, 2003 -- I propose. She accepts.
Shortly thereafter -- I have the panic attack to end all panic attacks.
Dec. 24, 2003 -- We nearly break up after I tell her about my doubts, but we decide to take it five minutes at a time.
New Year's Eve 2003 -- Yada yada yada.
June 13, 2004 -- We get married.
August 2004 -- We honeymoon at Disney World. We might as well have stayed, because ...
October 2004 -- I quit my job in Colorado and we move to Florida. We find a small rental house.
New Year's Eve: "Skyrockets in flight ... "
March 2005 -- During a visit to her ob-gyn, a lump is discovered in Deb's breast.
A couple of weeks after that: Deb is hospitalized with a bad cold. During her stay, the lump is biopsied, and found to be malignant.
Shortly after that -- She undergoes weeks of chemotherapy to shrink the mass.
June 2005 -- Deb has a mastectomy.
July and August 2005 -- She undergoes radiation treatment.
September 2005 -- Thinking the cancer is licked, we start house shopping.
November 2005 -- We move into our house.
Late December 2005 -- Nodes reappear on Deb's chest wall. We know it's bad news.
New Year's Eve 2005 -- The tradition is broken. She doesn't feel well enough to even go to a Barenaked Ladies concert. At her insistance I go alone, and have a miserable time.
February 2006 -- She's hospitalized with breathing problems and restarts chemo.
Through September -- She is hospitalized twice more. We go to Disney World one last time when my friend Matt brings his family.
Sept. 11 -- She dies.

Q. Deb was married before?
A. Yes. She didn't like to talk about him. From what I understand, after they got married, he quit his job and moved them in with his mother, who thought he could do no wrong. He also expected her to support them on her salary. They divorced after less than a year. I've never met the man, and if I did, I'd injure him badly, and if I couldn't, I'd pay someone to do it. Seriously.

Q. What is your favorite memory of Deb?
A. The way she looked at me on our wedding day.

Q. What would you change if you could?
A. Besides her getting sick and dying? I'd have married her sooner. She hinted that she wanted to for months before I proposed. I should have taken her up on it.

Q. When was your first kiss?
A. On the ice rink in Colorado Springs.

Q. Did you guys fight?
A. We never had a screaming match. When we got angry, we went to our separate corners until we cooled down, then we talked it out. We never went to bed angry.

Q. Would you, knowing all the pain you'd have to endure, do it all over again?
A. Hell, yeah.