This coming Thursday, September 10th, would have been our 15th wedding anniversary. As I explained in My Ideal Partner, on September 11th, 2006, while others were commemorating 9/11, I was both anticipating and dreading my late husband Bill’s homecoming from the nursing home where he’d been recuperating from his first stroke. From this point forward, I would be caring for him on my own. Despite the training I’d received from the facility’s occupational therapist, I didn’t know if I was ready for this.
But as you’ll read in the book, after a few false starts, we got along fine for six years until he passed in October of 2012. The following poem, which appears at the end of the chapter where I describe Bill’s homecoming, illustrates how anticipation can be interrupted by necessary bodily functions. You can click the play button below the poem to hear me read it.
The Bedroom
At three in the morning,
I’m mildly aroused
by the gentle touch of his hand.
He only has one good arm and leg,
still knows how to please me.
As he strokes me,
and I breathe the scent of his sweat,
I purr with anticipation.
He whispers, “I need to pee.”
By the way, for those of you who use the National Library Services for the Blind and Print Disabled, The Red Dress is available for download from their site here. No matter how you read it, please be sure to review it wherever you can. That goes for all my books. Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe, happy, and healthy, and may you always have positive experiences.
New! The Red Dress
Copyright July 2019 by DLD Books
When Eve went to her high school senior prom, she wore a red dress that her mother had made for her. That night, after dancing with the boy of her dreams, she caught him in the act with her best friend. Months later, Eve, a freshman in college, is bullied into giving the dress to her roommate. After her mother finds out, their relationship is never the same again.
Twenty-five years later, Eve, a bestselling author, is happily married with three children. Although her mother suffers from dementia, she still remembers, and Eve still harbors the guilt for giving the dress away. When she receives a Facebook friend request from her old college roommate and an invitation to her twenty-five-year high school class reunion, then meets her former best friend by chance, she must confront the past in order to face the future.
***
My Corner 