Made it through August, the month of birthdays.The month of your birthday.
You would have turned 62 this year. Early retirement age.
Would Social Security have been checking over your file, and going over your benefits? They have a (good) reputation for doing things like that. Checking out all the ways you might qualify. and deciding which one gives you the most money.
That would probably still be disability, given that there haven't been raises in benefits for a while. And on the summaries they send in the mail, disability usually pays more than retirement -- especially early retirement. At some point they probably even out, and maybe retirement even comes out ahead, but, in your case, we will never know.
Right now, I get more as your survivor than I would draw on my own, even, at this point, at full retirement age. I can see you smiling at that, thinking something finally works the way its supposed to.
It's been a different August this year.
Hailey's last year in single digits.
Max's first birthday with you since you left us.
Cool and dry, especially for August.
Long and lonely days and nights without you while I'm not working.
And now it is September.
Warren is going to school, starting tomorrow. How did he get so big already?
Hailey's last year in elementary school. She's unhappy that she won't be there next year to show him the ropes when he goes into kindergarten, our big-hearted loving little girl (and Warren's big- hearted big sis.)
And I am off work with bad legs and bad eyes and no one sane to talk to for all the long hours.
The West is afire, the South is awash, and climate change is inevitable, because change is inevitable. This years natural disasters seem to be doing quite a bit of terra-forming.
I find that interesting.
I called it a waiting month, because soon it will be October again. And October seems to have an affinity for tragedy in many small ways.
Yes, I see pending personal losses, but hope and pray to be wrong.
Miracles happen.
They do.
They can.
And so I wait.
But not for you, because it is sinking in so much more that you just are not when it comes to living out my life, and even these few years later, that is immense.
Immensely empty.
In the immense emptiness of the desert, cactus blooms after a shower.
In the immense emptiness of space, stars are born and die.
In the immense emptiness of me, there is always you.
Love, always,
Always.
You would have turned 62 this year. Early retirement age.
Would Social Security have been checking over your file, and going over your benefits? They have a (good) reputation for doing things like that. Checking out all the ways you might qualify. and deciding which one gives you the most money.
That would probably still be disability, given that there haven't been raises in benefits for a while. And on the summaries they send in the mail, disability usually pays more than retirement -- especially early retirement. At some point they probably even out, and maybe retirement even comes out ahead, but, in your case, we will never know.
Right now, I get more as your survivor than I would draw on my own, even, at this point, at full retirement age. I can see you smiling at that, thinking something finally works the way its supposed to.
It's been a different August this year.
Hailey's last year in single digits.
Max's first birthday with you since you left us.
Cool and dry, especially for August.
Long and lonely days and nights without you while I'm not working.
And now it is September.
Warren is going to school, starting tomorrow. How did he get so big already?
Hailey's last year in elementary school. She's unhappy that she won't be there next year to show him the ropes when he goes into kindergarten, our big-hearted loving little girl (and Warren's big- hearted big sis.)
And I am off work with bad legs and bad eyes and no one sane to talk to for all the long hours.
The West is afire, the South is awash, and climate change is inevitable, because change is inevitable. This years natural disasters seem to be doing quite a bit of terra-forming.
I find that interesting.
I called it a waiting month, because soon it will be October again. And October seems to have an affinity for tragedy in many small ways.
Yes, I see pending personal losses, but hope and pray to be wrong.
Miracles happen.
They do.
They can.
And so I wait.
But not for you, because it is sinking in so much more that you just are not when it comes to living out my life, and even these few years later, that is immense.
Immensely empty.
In the immense emptiness of the desert, cactus blooms after a shower.
In the immense emptiness of space, stars are born and die.
In the immense emptiness of me, there is always you.
Love, always,
Always.
