Goodbye

He was misunderstood, and nobody liked him much.  Something about him just didn't sit well with people.  He made them feel uncomfortable.

Perhaps it was because his life had been an open book.  He had shared his world with every single person he met, thinking they might actually care.  Most didn't.  They just stood and nodded, checking their watches and slowly backing away from him...hoping he would take the hint.

 He didn't have many friends.  Of the ones he had, they understood him.  They had a sense of his inner turmoil.

Sometimes he was really quiet, and this is when his inner demons began to assail him. This is when he heard the voice of his dead father telling him, "You'll never amount to anything.  You'll never make it."  Sometimes he would just sleep for days.  He wouldn't eat or talk.  Just sleep.

And then, as if the hand of God reached down and gently shook him, he would open his eyes and start to smile again.

Living with him hadn't been easy.  She never knew who she would wake up next to.  Some days were filled with joy and laughter.  Other days she walked on eggshells, afraid he would explode from the rage he carried deep inside.

But she loved him.  That is why she had stayed.  Most people didn't understand.  If she had a dollar for every person who had told her to leave him, she would be a rich woman.  But they didn't know him like she knew him.  They never saw the sides of him that she saw.

They never saw him when he gently took care of her after her surgery, tending her wound as carefully as any Dr. would have.  They never saw him rolling around in the floor with the children, laughing.

They never saw him give his only coat to a complete stranger in the dead of winter.  Or give a homeless man some lunch he bought at the nearest fast food place.

They never saw him as he worked 3 jobs just so she could be at home with the children while they were young.

Sometimes it was easy for her to get caught up in the opinions of other people.  She would find herself nodding in agreement as they would talk about him behind his back, saying things they assumed she must agree with. And it was true that some of what they said WAS true.  But then she would stop and remind herself that they did not know him the way that she did.

She looked in the mirror, trying to imagine what her life would be like without him.  There had been days when she would have paid any amount of money to get away from him.  There were other days when there was no other place she had rather be.

She put on a bit of lipstick to add some color.  The black dress had drained all of the color from her face, other than her eyes which were red from crying.  She took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on her nerves.  She wondered how many people were there, waiting to hear the words that she was going to speak.  How many of them were there because they truly cared, and how many of them were the very ones who had spoken such harsh words about him when he was still alive.

She closed her eyes, remembering him on his finest days...remembering his smile, his laughter, his kindness.  She headed for the church sanctuary, ready to show the people there a side to her husband they had never known.  She wanted him to know that he had amounted to something in his life.. that he would be missed, and that her life would never be the same without him.