A Rare Photo of Theresa - June 29, 2013

We went out for a walk at 8:30 PM. This was back when she did not require oxygen for any walking. She would go into the hospital in September for pneumonia, then again in February 2014. It was a cycle she could not break.

We had a lot of hospital trips.

Sept 6, 2019 :(
Dec 28, 2018
June 20,2016
Dec 25, 2014
Feb 24, 2014
Sept 17,2013
- no hospital I can recall-
Feb 24, 2010 double pneumonia
Jan 10, 2009 double pneumonia
Jan 2, 2000 double pneumonia, in blood

I cried when I saw the photo. I found it on our old ipad 2 tablet that I still keep charged up. There's more photos and some videos on it, I just can't look at it for long.

Oh god that photo. It sent chills into my heart. It magnified the amount of grief I had over the past 2 days. I kept remembering how vital and active she was before she became a prisoner of our apartment due to her lung disease.

She wouldn't stop smoking. I understood why, it was the only thing she could control in her life. I can't imagine the frustration of her life, sitting on the couch, alone, with the cat. I provided her with as much things and love as I could. She would say to me "I'm mad at the disease... is this my new normal? Out of breath going to the bathroom? really?" She was understandably angry. I would be too.

Deep down, I was terrified. I could see the rapid decline yet my brain told me to shut the fuck up about it.

And now, the turmoil. The sadness. The tears.

If she were alive, she would yell at me. "Chris! I told you to find someone and live your life!"

But I remember our life. I know it wasn't perfect but it was ours. We had each other. She said "I don't care where we live or if we're poor, as long as I have you and the kitty, I'm OK".

I have no more guilt. I have resolved it. My love for her is unending. She would hate to see me in such agony all the time.

And so I am trapped in time between those two moments. I was standing on the C-train today, and I decided to stand against the back wall. There is room for 1 person to my left and 1 to my right. A younger woman (30's, pretty). She reaches out and grabs a bar that is close to my body.

Technically, when someone does it that close they enter your intimate zone. For those that don't know, the intimate zone varies from region to region in the world. But in North America, it's 0-18 inches of space. Her hand was 2 inches away from my left arm.  I am reading a reddit thread on news, but my screen has a privacy mesh, so people think I'm looking into a pitch black screen.

But I know she can see my screen sometimes because the filter doesn't work vertically. I keep my head down, staring at my phone. I try to turn the world off around me but it's impossible with the closeness. I feel tension building inside me.

Then she moved to the right of me. And this, dear reader, is something I have never had happen to me before in my entire life! During a moment, the space to the right opened up, but instead of putting her back to the wall next to me, she decides to get into my intimate and is sideways, almost cuddled into my right side of my body. She is literally inches from me.

People say that women who are attracted to you will get closer to you. I used to believe this was true for women who know you. I mean, who expects a woman to do that with a stranger?

And yet, for those few stops, it felt nice to have her close to me. My god, I could almost smell her perfume. My stop came up, she moved away to sit down. I left the train later. I really was in no good mood to look back.

My grief had turned into rage. I went home and cried for a little bit. I wanted to share this precious picture of her with people.

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