I am a romantic. It was not always thus. I had once been a self-prescribed pragmatist.
I wouldn’t be surprised if life with Burt is what turned me into a sentimental sort. I’m sure it has.
When we met, I was determined to find a life partner. I was lonely living alone and it was time. I had set out to do that. «It’s like a job,« my friend C said, meaning I would have to work at finding someone to spend my life with. For me, once Burt and I had found each other, that life together didn’t have to be in marriage.
I am pretty sure that I suggested something like that. “I’m fine with co-habiting.”
Burt preferred committment.
He told me that he’d gotten my father’s goat, as it were, when he told him upon their first meeting that he planned to marry me. [My father’s reaction should be beside the point; clearly, he wasn’t a romantic.] Burt told my father of his intentions before he ever told me.
Apparently, he also told the cab driver who took him home on the night we first met.
When Burt asked me to marry him, it was natural and easy to say yes. I had fallen in love with him and I was committed.
He took the day off from work on his birthday to propose, then to escort me ring-shopping.
Our romance was fun; love was an adventure. Marriage was just us being together.
I guess it’s safe to say Burt was a romantic. A three cards, always the sincere ones, never the funny, for Valentine’s and no fewer than 2 for my birthday, romantic.
When he became ill, I cried as I emerged from the closet where I had stored cards he’d given me over the years.
I was sure I’d never get another caring and thoughtful card from him again.
You know that Burt proved me wrong. He remembered; he went with an aide and bought me two cards; he personalized them just as he’d always done with all his love and with meticulous care.
Burt always inscribed the cards “dear Tamara” and “to my wife” and of course the date; he made them personal, detailing which anniversary we were celebrating, how many years we’d been together.
Of course, I got him a carefully chosen card for every occasion, each year, too. He expected cards to commemorate our life events. He was a romantic, sentimental guy.
He also always appreciated the poems I wrote him, romantic that I am. My poems were not always linked to occasions, and I would interrupt our dinner or a tv show to read them to him. He loved that I thought of him with so much love and tenderness.
He’d be happy to know that I am still writing about him. I guess he does know that he’s always in my thoughts.
He knows, too, that I can’t help talking about him, because under his love and care I turned into a romantic. A romantic who misses him and remembers all our life events.
this is our life 