I got a new fridge this week. Well, new to me. My old one just stopped defrosting itself and a repairman told me it wasn’t worth the cost of repair. So once a week we were standing there with a hairdryer. A friend of mine was redoing her condo and needed to get rid of a fridge, so I hired a handyman to move it to my house and take the old one to the dump.

 

I had that old fridge at least 12 years. My parents bought it for us back in the days when we had our school here in Kona when money was tight. So a lot of memories of Mike pulling those doors open to search for snacks. A lot of pictures of him and other people we’ve lost on the side of it. Kind of like a memorial fridge, it became.

 

After I had cleared everything out and removed all the pictures and magnets the other morning waiting for the other one to appear, I stood there for a few moments feeling nostalgic about that fridge. Seems silly to feel sad about losing an appliance. But I did.

 

It just doesn’t stop, the memories, the missing him. I am reading a book right now on my Kindle app. It’s called “Say Goodbye For Now” by Catherine Ryan Hyde. Not high literature but she writes well. She’s the author who wrote the “Pay it Forward” book they made into a movie some years back. And I came across this passage this morning:

 

“She died in childbirth. So more than eleven years. But I still miss her. I’m used to living without her, but the missing never goes away. You think you’ll get over the loss of someone. Eventually. Because it seems we get over the loss of everything, given enough time. And I guess in a lot of ways I’ve partially gotten over the traumatic event of her passing. But what you don’t realize, until you have to live with it, is that it’s the absence of the person that’s the trouble. The ongoing absence. And when you’re missing someone, a longer time without them doesn’t solve the problem. The longer you don’t see someone, the more you miss them.”

 

I thought that pretty much summed it up, how I have been feeling, and thinking about it all.

 

I’m writing and posting this on the 4th. Any holiday will bring up memories, won’t it? Thinking of the BBQs and fireworks with friends in days gone by, and Mike isn’t the only one missing now, sad to say. I’m working at the restaurant tonight, closing shift, and glad for it. I’m not going to any BBQs and won’t be sitting somewhere with completely different people at a completely different party fending off memories. I will just be busy. And will get to see the parade and town fireworks right from the host stand. I’m just fine with that.