Once Upon A Time
We went to visit Chesapeake Beach, MD from the home we were selling in Falling Waters ,WV in the winter of 1996, to see where our future rental home could be.
We ate a delicious seafood lunch at the Rod-n-Reel and drove around the area.
It was still pretty cold by the water , and we all had a good feeling about the place after we left. A new area with a fresh start sounded exciting.
We ultimately wound up not moving there, but to nearby Huntingtown in early 1997 , and then moved on to Port Republic in early 1999.
We went to the Rod-n-Reel another time after that with my parents when they came for a visit , but the final time was for Tom's memorial dinner.
His brother's who had come out from Spokane were also there ,as was my Dad's family from the Toledo area .
It was a cloudy day in late July 2002 ,and we all wandered around the boats for Tom's sake.
He so loved to look at boats , plus he liked that beach and restaurant even though we hadn't alot of eating out funds available to us over the past few years .
My Dad's younger sister Marilyn kept annoying us by snapping pictures throughout her stay .
Not that I really wanted a remembrance of those exact moments of shock and pain in the the weeks following Tom's murder .
She treated it all like some strange photo op social event it seemed to me.
That camera came out of her purse like Quick Draw McGraw , every time we all got together during those initial weeks after it all happened.
She also did her own thing stylistically while attending the memorial.
She wore tie-dye t-shirt and a side pony tail to the service.
I don't really know her well ,and I was so busy holding it together, that I never really said anything to her about her odd behavior .
There was a terrible storm that ravaged that beach a year or so later , that did alot of damage to the restaurant .
It's Sunday , and every Sunday I stop and think of him.
He died on a Sunday afternoon .
Everything was quiet and normal all that Sunday as we went about our daily business ,until after supper , when the world as we knew it began to collapse.
I cannot pass a boatyard without thinking of him in both his living years with us , and the end , which are now firmly tied together.
posted by: judypatooote (reply)
post date: 08.29.05 (12:28 am)
My husband has been gone 11 years in Oct. and it gets easier, but you never forget.....thank God we do have memories to remember. And pictures and I just went through some VCR's that had his voice on it....it was strange, and I still cry....a song, a tree, a rock.... He loved natural nature, and we use to go rock hunting....I have those rocks in my yard......so my heart goes out to you.....with your memories......