Changes: A Last Kiss Goodbye

My wife of 26 years passed away on December 27,2019. Leaving me to raise three teenage kids, two of which are special needs on the autism spectrum. I wrote this on January 1,2020 the day after the service. At the time it was very therapeutic to write, but too painful to share until now.

A Last Kiss goodbye

Watching the slide show of my sweetheart that the lord called home last week. All I longed to do was give her a last kiss goodbye. 

I had a habit that sometimes drove her crazy, but I couldn’t leave the house without giving kissing her goodbye. If I got distracted or something I always had to kiss her again as I left. I always felt a goodbye kiss didn’t count unless one of us was in the process of leaving the house, the other kiss was just a bonus.

After she had passed when my family was standing at the door of the hospital debating on who was riding home with who I had to go back down the hall to the room where my Sandy’s body was in and give her one last kiss through the sheet covering her face.  Even though I had kissed goodbye a few minutes earlier through the sheet with the delay I was drawn back to her for a final kiss goodbye and to tell her once again that I loved her. I walked out to my brothers pickup and he drove me home where I started my expanded role of a parent and transferred many contacts and calendar from her phone to mine.

Against my wishes, but following her wishes she was cremated. I feel cheated from not being able to kiss her goodbye a final time. Even if it was just a kiss passed from my lips to my fingers to her lips.