Because I'm Tap, Tap, Tapping on the Glass

Today was pretty fine. Some good stuff happened, some good people checked in on me, and I felt okay for large parts of my day.

It was also really hard—I had the energy to do some sorting in my office, and that meant looking at things Kellie had bought and cared about and lovingly selected, which is such a difficult process for me now. Kellie was the very best gift-giver. She prided herself on listening when people talked, which meant learning their likes and dislikes, remembering what mattered to them, and then making exhaustive lists of what we were going to buy everyone for birthdays and holidays and just because. I cannot tell you how many half-finished birthday lists I’ve found for everyone in our life. It gave her so much joy to get it just right for someone, to see the smile on their face when they opened a present from her and felt seen and loved. That was her favorite.

I’m going to miss that. Not getting gifts from her (though they were always perfect, and birthdays and Christmases and Father’s Days are going to be much sadder now), but seeing her face light up when she bought me the perfect gifts, over and over, across all these decades. She never got bored of giving me presents, and I never got bored of loving her.

I think that love languages have some validity as a construct, and also have some nonsense thrown in as a little treat, as many self-help frameworks do. But Kellie’s love language was gift-giving, and mine is acts of service. I have sat on a bench at the foot of our bed and rubbed her legs and feet while we read together before bedtime every night for more than twenty years, and probably closer to thirty. You can ask my parents—foot massages was something we got in trouble for the first time she came to Kentucky to meet my family in person, as we were children and it was far too much physical intimacy for my parents to be comfortable with.

Can you imagine how it feels for me to not do that at bedtime, suddenly, without warning, after all those nights in a row? It feels deeply, terribly, horribly wrong. I can count on one hand the number of nights I didn’t do it in at least the last five years, maybe we were arguing or maybe she was staying overnight in a hospital. My point is that this is one example of an incredibly ingrained life routine, and we had hundreds (or even thousands). This change does not just affect me because I love her and miss her—it affects me because every minute of my day is now drastically different.

I got my passport photo taken today, and sent in the application afterward. One thing that’s different now than seventeen years ago (the last time I got my passport renewed) is that the light reflected off my bald head so badly he had to turn the lights off and on several times and take three different sets of pictures to get one he was happy with. That’s aging for ya, baby!

I also mailed in Coco’s AKC registration papers, since it’s something Kellie and I wanted to do for fun, just to certify that she is OFFICIALLY a fancy girl.

Just a short post for tonight. Not because I’m sad, because it’s not that bad at the moment. I just feel wiped out and need to go and get some rest.

Thanks for being there, and thanks for caring.

Matt