Fifty-Three Years of Little Things

My daughter set this computer up for me and told me to write down what happened with her grandfather, said people might want to read it, and I asked her who'd want to read about an old woman and her old husband, but she insisted, so here I am typing slow with two fingers like I always have. Earl passed in February. We were married fifty-three years. That's long enough to learn a person down to the smallest habits, the way he hummed while he was thinking about something, the one hallway light he never let go dark at night. You don't notice how many little things there are until all of them go missing at once. The night he passed, I was lying in our bed, his side empty for the first time in fifty-three years, and I want to tell you exactly what happened because I've already told my daughter and my pastor both. I felt him. Not a ghost, nothing scary about it, just him, that same weight settling onto the bed the way he always did before sleep, that same little sigh he always gave. I lived with that man fifty-three years. I know his weight and I know his sigh and I felt both of them that night. My daughter thinks it was just grief playing tricks on me, and she's usually right about most things, she's a smart girl. But I've decided to believe Earl came back one more time to say goodnight, the way he did every night for fifty-three years, because that's the kinder thing to believe, and I figure I'm old enough now to pick the kinder thing when I get the choice.