undone

Somebody said that what we regret most are not the things we did but those we didn't do.   I am full of regret there.

Trips never taken, trips never taken together because I thought I couldn't go, events unattended, movies unseen, books unread, words unsaid.

She asked me to teach her to play chess.   Once this year.   I didn't.

I learned to ride a bicycle because of her, actually.   She bought an old Schwinn Varsity at a police auction.  It sat there for several years and finally I got off with it and took it apart.  It was when she told me a son bought a bunch of bikes at an auction and they were all riding that I decided to learn.  So I learned.   And we rode together twice only.  I didn't encourage her because I worried about her getting hurt.  My bones don't break, my bruises don't hurt; hers did.

I wanted her to play golf, got her sets of clubs twice.  The first set diasppeared, borrowed by someone.  The second sits nearby.  Once we went out into the yard for 5 minutes to swing at whiffle balls.

She wanted a child, and undertook a costly and dangerous regimen of hormones.  I was often not there at the critical times.  We never had a child of our own. 

So often and so long I was not there.  I was not even half a husband.

She should have married someone rich but caring.  Instead she got me.  

The last time I saw her alive, at the airport leaving for vacation, they were late for the plane and fussing with baggage and children and I did not hug or kiss her.   I waived, when I thought she looked my way, but she didn't see.   I did not speak to her again.