The last week or so has been sharp. I am trying my absolute best to just keep trucking along like I have been the last year, but as the one-year anniversary approaches, I feel it.
“I am on my way home babe, order the viet,” I texted Nick from work after having a ridiculously long week. We were headed out to Brad Paisley for our date night, and I couldn’t wait. We weren’t going to be seeing each other for a week, so it was a little bitter sweet.
I got home, and I had to get ready super fast, but Nick looked at me the same way as usual when I got ready for a night out and told me I was beautiful. Usually, he would make weird animal noises first, but I always knew that meant he thought I looked sexy; he looked so good too.
Jennie and her friend picked us up. Jennie and Nick were in the back, chatting away as usual. We parted ways at the door of the concert, and that was the last time Jennie got to see Nick. Although she will always have that epic last text message, he sent her. It made us all laugh.
While we were waiting for the concert to start, I was venting to Nick about this female Sgt at work. I got into it with her on the phone that day, and I was absolutely fuming. The woman took her rank and decided she was allowed to treat me like complete shit just because I was only a Constable. I went on to tell Nick I don’t think I can do this job for 16 more years because I can’t bite my tongue for that long. I am perfectly okay with taking orders from someone of a higher rank and have never had negative paper for insubordination but when someone treats me with disrespect just because “she is known to be a bitch,” I am not okay with that, and I am not one to be pushed around. However, with that said, I bit my tongue, took the treatment, and promised Nick I would stop talking about it for the rest of the night. He put his arm around me, kissed me, and said no work talk tonight babe.
The concert was amazing. We drank a ton, and stayed up super late. Nick had to work in morning, but for some reason this time he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. When the concert ended, we got into the “limo cab” and pretended to be celebrities with the windows rolled down. For some reason, people gave Nick tons of attention, but I think I may have gotten the finger from a few. I said I was Hannah Montana.
I wanted nachos so bad so we had the cab drop us off at the 7/11 by our house. We picked up some grub and stumbled home drunk. We went straight to bed with our snacks, and before I knew it, Nick was passed out. I told him I needed to finish my nachos and those nachos ended up costing me the last chance I had to be intimate with Nick. Sorry, Mom and Dad ;). I know you are reading this, but I need to warn people to just put the damn Nachos away and don’t let your person fall asleep. I didn’t want to wake him because he had to be up in two hours, but in hindsight I sure regret it. That was the last night I went to sleep with Nick by my side.
I couldn’t have asked for a better last date night with Nick. When I look back at it now, I wonder if he really somehow just knew. Did he have a premonition? I honestly wonder that every single day because there were so many things that happened that were just perfect the last few days before he died.
I am so glad Nick told me to shut the hell up about work and so grateful we were able to set a side all of the stresses of the week. We had an incredible night. You know it’s funny, we decided not to talk about anything stressful because it was our last night together for a whole week. All I can do is laugh now when I say that. All I can do is wish I could go back and know that a week really isn’t that long. I wish so badly it would have only been a week because I miss him so much.
I am not going to write too much tonight. I need to get myself ready for my trip to Golden tomorrow. There is nowhere else I would rather be on the one year anniversary than the place my Nick took his last breath. If you think of Nick this week and you wonder what you can do to help me get through, just do this; be grateful.
Be grateful for everyone you have today and know that they are so precious and so fragile. It was my nephew’s 2nd birthday party today. He turns two on the 23rd. I missed his first birthday because I was more than likely in bed drugged up and trying to process what just happened in my life. I looked around the room at his birthday party and a couple of times tonight I prayed to myself in my head. Please God let us get through this year without illness or death. Please at least just for one year so my family and I can recharge. I know that it can happen to any of us and we aren’t any more deserving than anyone else, but regardless, I prayed.
Thank you, everyone, for not only following me this last year but also walking beside me. I love sharing what I have learned and my memories of Nick. I know how important it is to document memories and this is one way I know our story will never disappear and Nick’s memory will live one.
“She’s the voice I love to hear someday when I am ninety.
She’s that wooden rocking chair I want rocking right beside me.
Everyday that passes I only love her more, Yeah she’s the one that I’d lay down my own life for, and she’s everything I ever wanted and everything I need.
Yeah, she’s everything to me.
Everything I ever wanted and everything I need.
She’s everything to me.”
-Brad Paisley-
Nick was my everything, and although he didn’t make it to ninety, I will carry him for the rest of my life. Nick always showed me that I was his everything and never went a day with out making sure I knew it.
xoxoxo
Meg