Carole in Red

Carole I dreamed about you again last night, an 8-year-old sitter was watching your boys, just for minutes, while you looked for another but that wasn’t the significance of the eight. It was eight years ago that you left Miami and moved to Key West - and in another few months you’d be dead. In my dream you were wearing a red shirtwaist dress with yellow and blue circles, not quite polka dots, I remember the design, red with a few small yellow and blue circles, like bubbles, maybe the sky and sun with a red background for bleeding because you didn’t want to leave your young adult boys, they just starting college, you thinking families should be weaned by consent rather than poverty. Yet you found love with Craig, so maybe the red was for love. A few months after moving to Key West you’d die, officially of a heart attack, but I knew otherwise, we all did, especially Craig, whose love and warmth cradled you even as our father sharpened his knife.

Today is Curt's birthday and our 20 anniversary, both together, how practical of us. How sad to be without you.