OK, so here's what I think about in the dark of night when I am trying not to cry and I miss him so much and I know that there will never be another man who will approach what we had together. I think a lot of "what if" and "If only" scenarios which are totally counterproductive but I'm not ready to let go and besides I haven't even been through a year without him and I don't even remember the first 3 months. If only when he was in Cleveland and consorting with library school students somehow there would be a library science/physics event where I could have met this gorgeous Australian guy with the sexiest voice ever, right when we each were between Spouse No. 1 and Spouse No. 2, or rather we would have become each other's spouse no. 2. And he would have gone on long ballooning adventures and I would get mad at him and kick him out. Or we would have had beautiful but genetically malformed children who would all go blind like me or get one of the other genes I carry (which is why now I am glad I never had kids to stop a few genetic anomalies in their tracks). Not that I was ever very baby oriented but he was and I loved him so much that I would have done it. What a different life we would have had. A very different life where I didn't have to find him by first falling in love with AFL and then falling in love with Australia and then finding him via the University of Melbourne football pool. A life where I didn't live in my dream job for all those years and didn't fall in and out of love with Spouse No. 2. A life where I didn't meet all those people in the US whom I deeply miss right now and spending a day or a week with them will not make up for missing them for the past 17 years. A life where I wouldn't have met all the people here who have supported me and loved me for the past 17 years and are the only reason I have made it through the last 10 months. A life where I didn't even knit, for heaven's sake! There are some ties that distance has enhanced, like I am closer to both my half-brothers than I ever was in the US even when my father had finally loosened his grip on our getting together. Would I have been sending my brothers email in this parallel universe? Would I have stayed married to Spouse no. 2? I just want me dear Bear back and I keep seeing him in that hospital room, still warm, but not with us any more. What if I had really thrown a tantrum years ago and stopped him drinking? What if I had rung his ex and told her to f*** off and stop using his children to punish him or whatever mind games she was playing that messed him up so bad. For that matter why do the children believe they are due some prize for having the father they never cared about die before he could give them more money they didn't deserve. I never got a cent from my father for anything and certainly didn't think of demanding he write a will in my favour even when I thought he was being foolish. I worked my bum off and got scholarships and part time jobs and such to pay for my education and didn't expect any handouts at all once I had a job (and got none to be sure).

I better go to bed before I get too specific to be anonymous. I'm in pain, both physical and mental, I wonder how I am going to get through the rest of my life without him when all our plans were made to grow old together chasing roos out of the vegetable patch and parrots out of the fruit trees in sunny Victoria.