While getting ready for bed last night, Patrick grabbed a small photo album that sits on our dresser and began flipping through the pages. It is filled with photos my mom had taken of our rehersal dinner and our wedding day. As he was going through each page one by one, he would smile, and I could see a look of wistfulness in his eyes. He was remembering what he was like pre-stroke.

He would find a photo of interest, and show it to me, saying a word here and there to give me a clue to what he was thinking. Some of his clues were better than others, and sometimes it took alot of questions and guessing for me to figure out what he was trying to tell me.

The thing that really got to me was, I was finding it very difficult to look at the pictures of us with no idea to what our future would be. I saw the smile on my face, and it seemed somehow...naive to me. I just wanted to say to the stranger in the photo, "It will not always be so easy...enjoy each moment."

Patrick did not notice that I was having difficulty looking at the photos, probably just saw me fiddling with this and that as I prepared for bed. I would look at the pictures long enough to get an idea of what he was trying to tell me, but I could not bring myself to to look any longer than that. I was not even consciously doing it, but I did notice each time I looked I got a knot in my stomach. As soon as I realized that was happening, I noticed that I really did not want to look at us so happy, so unaware.

It has occurred to me that it's not just the photos that make me uneasy. Sometimes the memories of little get-aways we've had, like walking the trails in Starved Rock Park, make me sad too. I am having a hard time enjoying the memory as a wonderful day in our life, but rather it makes me sad to think about how much our lives have changed since then. I don't try to think of the memory this way, it just happens. It scares me to think I may stop letting myself remember good times for fear of it saddening me. I want to remember each and every day we spent together as the happy day it was, and let it bring a smile to my face as it would have had there never been a stroke. I don't want happy memories buried because I am a coward to feel the pain of the loss. I don't want to not be able to remember our lives before the stroke.

I have spent so much time moving on to our new lives, that I have not looked back. I long for the time when looking back does not hurt so much.

Kristen