It’s another chill morning on the homestead. The cats are fed, and the morning deer have retreated into the anonymity of the woods. Gray clouds are riding a southerly breeze and reflecting the morning sun. There’s a lot of orange and blue and pink. I should probably be standing on the porch watching them rather than writing about them, because none of these words convey anything remotely comparable to how I feel standing there under the morning sky watching those glorious colors slide by. But here I am. Writing.

As I do, I realize it’s mornings like this when the loss of my wife last year becomes somewhat acute. I miss being able to call out to her to join me on the porch, to see the sunrise or the sunset or some colorful bird fly by. I miss sharing a new musical discovery, a fine movie, a book. I miss the connectiveness. We tended to revel in the same things, which I suppose was a big part of why we were together. We never had a lot of money, but sunsets, sunrises, and full moons were free.

What I’m left with now is roughly similar to the situation I had when I traveled the world on business. I’d see a beautiful place, Jungfrau in the morning, the Zurich Zee in the evening, the canals in Amsterdam, the glory of St. James Park in London, and I’d catalog the memory and try to convey to her the beauty of the place when I got home, then work to get her there, which happened more often that not. Of course, whatever I see now is mostly for me and my memories. But that’s okay. Noticing beautiful things, large or small, seems a worthwhile endeavor even if the only place left to share it is here in these pitiful words.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale