People have asked me if I’m worried about Mr. Virgo’s grave being here and me being in West Virginia. I’m really not. I have a lock of his hair and I’m going to find a special place on the farm to bury it in my own private ceremony. I’ll place a marker of some sort and I can go there to talk to him. But, in all honesty, he’s not at either place. He’s in Heaven. And he’s in the hearts of those who knew and loved him and remember him. He is always with me, even though I no longer feel his presence like I did in the months after he died.

I had to have a talk with him during the winter. I have a security system installed in the house. There’s a motion detector in the living room. I went to Denver one weekend and the motion detector went off sending alarms to my phone. Pretty soon, the alarm company called and asked if everything was ok. I told them I didn’t know because I was out of town. They sent a police officer out to check and everything was fine. The next time I went to Denver , the same thing happened. Now, Mr. Virgo would never have said I couldn’t go away without him, but I was certainly aware he didn’t like it. This last alarm sent me a text every three seconds till I went online and made it stop. When I got back home, I sat down in the living room and told him, “Ok. That was really cute how you manipulated the burglar alarm there, sweetheart. You are very clever and it’s so cool to know you’re still here and still have your wicked sense of humor. But, you’ve got to cut this out. For one thing, it scares me. For another, it’s not just me your are bothering… It’s the alarm company and the police and possibly the neighbors. So , honey…cut it out, ok? Find some other way to let me know you’re around.” I never had an alarm after that. 🙂

When we fall in love, and a commitment is made, we have no reason to believe it won’t be forever. We take vows to be there till death. But it doesn’t always work that way. Life gets complicated and people change and things don’t always work out the way we planned. Divorce has it’s own kind of grief. When it happened the first time, I was the instigator which changes your perspective and the pain involved. The second was not my idea and it was horrible. I grieved and mourned for close to four years and the pain was exquisite. When Mr. Virgo came along and renewed my faith in love, and in men, he proposed by telling me he wanted to spend every day of the rest of his life with me. In my grief after losing him, I was bereft. I felt as though some major part of me had been amputated. It was devastating. In my Pollyanna-ish fashion, I got to the point where I needed to look for silver linings. I was sitting by the river one day when it occurred to me. “I was his last love. He spent every day of the rest of his life with me!” It made me smile that I could love this man well as he lived the last years of his life. What a gift we were given. What a responsibility to care for and protect that precious gift God gave us. We did it well and that gives me peace.