That was truly a lovely story. I had only 2 years with my fiance when he died suddenly one fall morning. I had no warning he would be gone so suddenly. But since our courtship began in the days after Katrina in New Orleans, we loved each other madly and cherished each other so much because we were all we really had left when Katrina had taken so much from both of us, not that I had much left anyway after a severe illness and a divorce.
But then he came into my life. He was a New Orleans firefighter with gorgeous smiling blue eyes, a Captain on the department. He saw so much destruction and death. so the world we had together was a special refuge with each other. I loved him completely, told him he was beautiful, kissed him for no other reason than I happened to be walking by him as he sat at the computer and played his games as an escape from the horrors of the realities of recovering bodies for months after Katrina. I loved him completely without reservation, unconditionally, and I am ever so glad that I did. Then suddenly one morning, he was gone. His last words to me were "I love you" as he tucked me in bed and left.
It's been going on 5 years since he has gone and I survived and have a good life but there is still a part of him lives within me still and always will. I will forever be in love with him, even though I have a life now with Mr Swamp ( and that is yet another story of love with a firefighter in the aftermath of a hurricane). Mr Swamp knows and understands.
I still wear a replica of his NOFD badge on a gold chain, a gift he had custom made for me. I still wear his old shirt and his hoody. He firmly tacked my self esteem firmly in place forever. I know who hung the moon and who he hung it up there for. Even as I cried after losing him , I also smiled knowing that I was someone who was lucky enough to have been loved that much.
I don't write any of this for anyone to feel sorry for me or feel you should offer condolences. Don't feel that way at all. This isn't a sad story. What a lucky woman I am to have been loved like that. Yeah, it still brings me to tears at time but those tears always end up with me laughing as I remember him, because what I loved best about him was his ability to make me laugh through my tears.