Up All Night With a Good Memory

by Jeff Baker

NOTE: Yeah, this is probably more personal than I usually post, but I decided to put it up anyway. Written on June 29, 2023.

This may be more personal than I should post, but I will probably do it anyway.

Or I may just write it down. Here goes.

This has been a strange late Spring/early Summer. I am dealing with the recent passing of my much-loved Husband Darryl and am finding comfort in the little things. I have felt as Summer began that I have adjusted just a bit to being in a new phase of my life.

I’m up much of the night writing or reading/watching stuff online. Darryl and I used to watch old TV shows all night, but I’m not ready for that yet. It’s not as much fun without someone beside me to laugh at Dobie Gillis or Uncle Arthur and the like.

Anyway, late the other night (I call it that but it was like 2:30am) I wandered out to the kitchen to get something. I walked through the darkened living room, looked out the window on the front door, wandered to the kitchen for a can of (sugar-free) soda and then I was hit by a memory…

In the mid-Twenty-Teens I still had a delivery driver job; this one was four days a week with the big day being Friday. Consequently, I’d come home on Friday, have dinner, snuggle with Darryl on the couch in front of the TV and inevitably start to snooze. So, I would (sometimes at Darryl’s insistence) head for the bedroom to sleep. Usually around 10pm, sometimes earlier. Darryl would usually follow me a couple of hours later.

We would happily snooze together, but I would usually wake up around 2:00am, slip quietly out of bed and head to the living room and the silent lure of my laptop and e-mail. I’d quietly check that, go on Facebook, watch a few You Tube videos with headphones on (which is when I discovered that sweet werewolf cartoon “Dirty Paws.”)

And after an hour or two I would either be getting sleepy or just want to crawl back in that big, warm, husband-filled bed. So I would shut everything down and silently slip back into the bedroom and into bed next to my blissfully snoring husband.

He might wake up, or half wake up or not. If he did, we probably exchanged “I love yous.”

Then I would roll over, snuggle up next to him and in a few minutes the dark blanket of sleep would engulf us both. Maybe being the rising curtain to a world of dreams…

So that was the memory. And it made me smile and be very happy.

And I have been happy this last few weeks in spite of sorrow and grief. This is a process, I know and it isn’t cut-and-dried. So I’m grateful for the memories and the moments that still make me smile.

And it’s early in the morning and I’m heading to bed.

The bed still feels warm, occupied and filled with love.

—end—

—–jeff baker, June 29, 2023 2:28 AM

NOTE: Here’s the “Dirty Paws” cartoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48I0G_5zAs0