Today was hard.
I woke up anxious. As I was
feeding my dogs their breakfast, a wave of heat and nausea washed over me. I was flush, panicked, weak, dizzy. Was it a hot flash? Probably not considering the fact that I’d
recently broken up with my uterus. Was my
mom-radar going off? After a quick check
of the kids vital signs, I knew they were both fine. Was someone injured? Sick?
Dead? I emailed my family (it was
awfully early, after all) to ensure none of the above had happened. They replied that all was well. Later in the morning, sitting at my desk, I
realized. I reached into my pocket, and felt the brick.
One year ago today, this happened.
“. . . When I looked at deleted voice messages, I saw one from
Greg Foster. It was dated April 22. I realized that, when I’d entered his contact information, the phone had linked it to that
unknown Virginia number. Remembering that there had just been dead air, I
decided to listen again to be sure. There was his voice.
“Hey, Sharon. It’s Greg. Umm . .
it is about 9:30 my time here on the East coast. Umm, I just wanted to
let you know that I love you. And I’m thinkin’ about you daily. Umm, I would love to reconnect, so when
you are comfortable and ready, umm, please give me a holler. Again, my
little sister, I love you. And, umm, I’m doing well from the
health-side right now, umm, and just trying to reconnect. Umm, so again,
hope your evening’s going well, and I’ll be up another couple hours if you feel like calling back
tonight or whenever you’re comfortable. Bye.”
After taking a day to let that soak in and listening to the
message a hundred plus more times, I called him back on Monday, August 25. It went straight to voice mail.
I told him about the mix up with the voice mail, and how sorry I was that I
didn’t receive it sooner so that I could have called him back. I let him
know, again, that I loved him, and hoped that we could talk soon. I
immediately sent the same information in a text.
“Hi Greg. It’s Sharon. I just
left you a voice mail, too. Your message from a few months ago must not
have come through right away because I just found it yesterday when I was
cleaning out my old messages. I would love to reconnect. Thank you
for calling me. It meant the world to me. I’ve missed you so much.
Please call when you have a chance. I love you. I hope you got the
card I sent a couple of weeks ago.”
The next night, I sent him another text.
“Hi. Me again. Just
seeing if it’s a good time to visit.
:)”
Thus began a week of nausea, panic, weakness,
dizziness, sickness, and death. And then
we got “The Call.”
One year has passed. This is the
week. Friday is the day. It is hard.
I miss my dragonfly. I love you, Greg.
