Wednesday, December 24, 2008

I Miss Rob

I remember his laugh. He used to have this hooting laugh. Especially when Matt and Richy were around. And Jeff and Clyde.

One summer we laid in the grass in the Crested Butte town park and ate fresh tangerines from the farmer's market. I remember the first Christmas I spent as his wife. We cooked cornish game hens and ate mashed potatoes. We opened gifts under our little tree and spent the day with each other. He was my family.

And then there was the time he left his bivy sack buck naked. He walked slowly across the snow in his bare feet to grab the NutriGrain bar I threw him. He slowly peeled it open and nibble by nibble finished off his breakfast, tiptoed back to his bivy sack, and went back to sleep. All this charade just to prove that I had no business telling him what to do.

When I first met his Grandmother, his mom, and his brother, we played guitar for them. I made the chords and he strummed. He would sing at the top of his lungs. And that used to drive me nuts. But I would listen to it again if I could.

When we lived in Gunny, we kept our icecream on the roof. Our freezer was much too small. And he would have to get up at 2:00 in the morning in bitter negative temperatures to let our car engine run so that it would start when we left for school in the morning. One time he called the police because Mitch and Clyde were stomping around on our roof trying to scare me.

I remember when he was dissecting a mouse next to me while I was eating dinner and some of the brains squirted into my food. And then I let his roommate eat it.

We had a very short married life.

After he got sick, we were hardly married at all. But I remember watching him 'shave' as he rubbed a washcloth over his chin... watching his whiskers fall to the shower floor. Sitting with him as he got whatever treatment was next... platelets, blood, chemo, radiation. Scheming with him to devise our next practical joke to play on the nurses. Learning how to hand-stitch a quilt with him - he would have punched me if I had said I did it myself.

He made the best chili. I was always jealous of how he could open the fridge and make the best meal from hardly anything. He would always make yummy breakfast burritos. And he taught me to make tuna melts. I would love to hear his voice again. He loved Seinfeld and the Simpsons and those terrible movies by Wes Anderson. You know, he stepped his climbing down a few notches so that we could be partners. That makes me sad. I could have gotten better if I had tried. He really loved me. So much.

1 comment:

eLiZaBeTh said...

Hi Stephanie, I just saw that you have a blog & I wanted to come & check it out...This post is beautifully written. Thank you for sharing this part of your life with people.