Here, There and Everywhere

I’m at Costco when I see you from the back. You’re at the front of the store in a long checkout line. Slender, lithe, gorgeous tan with a thick thatch of gray, wearing your violet colored polo, a color most men would eschew, you lower your head. You’re reading.

You never go anywhere without taking something to read. You are a scholar, a fanatical art lover, a Renaissance man who gave your work life to statistics and the energy industry, while your soul longs for the arts, poetry, painting, sculpture, music, meaning Chopin, Chopin, Chopin.

On a rainy Sunday morning in Paris, we found Chopin’s grave in Pere Lachaise Cemetery. All the other tourists were looking for Jim Morrison’s. Alone, we huddled under an umbrella beside the great Polish composer, where you gave me an abbreviated version of Chopin’s short brilliant life.

Part Polish, you love all things Polish. When I told you the feta cheese I bought for Barbara’s Easter lunch was from Poland, you swore it was the best you ever tasted. I lied. The cheese was Bulgarian, but it made you so happy I never ‘fessed up.

That day at Costco, heart thudding, I push my cart toward you. The closer I get the more doubt-filled I become. You never go to Costco. You don’t have the patience for the place. I gasp. The man is not you.

You are in the oak box on the mantel. I will not see you again in this world. My mind knows this but my heart does not. I look for you everywhere.