Here we are – Hilton Head, 2018.

Before.

I use two ‘befores’ now. 

“Before he got sick” is any time prior to June 14, 2019 – the day we learned Mike had cancer.

The other, of course, is the day he died, and means the period between June 14, 2019, and November 2, 2022. 

He’s wearing a jacket, the ever-present orange hat, and his little half-smile. He didn’t love the beach [first]before, but came to love it [second] before.

He was willing – for me, the beach lover – to see the beach with new eyes. I’m grateful for beach memories with him.

I left the beach Saturday, wishing I could stay.

Mike, on the other hand, was always ready to go home. Maybe he lived in the present more than I do, appreciating what he had when he had it. Maybe he was more of a homebody.

He really did know how to stay in the now. He worried about what might happen if he didn’t do this or that. And when nothing bad happened, he took credit. His worrying prevented the awful-horrible-terrible thing.

He wasn’t a Boy Scout … but was always prepared. Contingency plans were in his doctor’s bag.

That man could eat. And he loved to eat. And that’s why esophageal cancer was an especially cruel fate for him.

He’d been ‘cured’ when we went to Hilton Head early in 2019. We stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall New Orleans-themed restaurant, and he slayed the fried seafood platter.

Six months later, he wasn’t cured after all. Good thing he still had the feeding tube.

I’m going back to Hilton Head soon, alone, with plans to walk the beach, search for shells, write, read, maybe even draw.

I won’t, however, be eating seafood at Kenny B’s. That would be too sad.