My Marine

It is gloomy and cool here today. I have found that days like this are the hardest for me. It always seems to be quieter in the house for some reason. Perhaps it is because people tend to stay inside more so there isn't the outside noise of people coming and going.
I was thinking of how few memories I can recall of my life with David. I wonder if somehow the mind buries them or shuts them down for a while. Could it be a way of postponing grief? A way to keep the mind and spirit from being bombarded and overwhelmed? It's not as if I don't have lots of memories. I have invested 16 years of my life to David. I still get an out of body experience when I think about my life now. How I am doing everything alone with the girls. It doesn't seem real. He isn't going to walk in the door. I don't have him to call in the middle of the day when I am feeling excited, sad, frustrated or to goof off with. He was always the first to know everything with me. We must have talked at least twice a day. Sounds needy, but it was a mutual need.
Most of the time when I think of David now the picture I get is the last moment with him, the moment of his death. I'm not sure why that is. A friend of mine says the same happens to him. Why do we have to be left with that? Why is it that our wedding day or some other happy day be the first I think of? I guess it just has to be because that time of death was the last time I saw him and it was so traumatic.
I do remember the day of this picture very clearly. David was being pinned as a Sgt. in the Marines. He had looked forward to it so much. I was so proud to stand there with him. His life as a Marine was so important to him. If it wasn't for his selflessness and stability for family I believe he would have stayed in till retirement. The years I was with him in the Marines were trying but fun. They taught me so much. I am convinced they are part of why I am as strong today as I am. Death was always a possibilty with David being in the military. He was being put in a dangerous situation almost on a regular basis. My first few months as a Marines's wife I experienced the unfortunate task of delivering food to a wife who had just lost her husband in a training excercise. He was a pilot in David's squadron. I remember thinking this is real. David could have been in that helicopter crash.
Events throughout our lives have an interesting way of preparing and teaching us things for the future if we allow them too.