The closer Christmas Eve came, the harder it became to think of the date as ordinary.<\/p>\n
I knew the day would arrive whether I understood Wendell's plans or not.<\/p>\n
The calendar would move forward.<\/p>\n
The hours would pass.<\/p>\n
And eventually, I would have to stop wondering what the yellow paper meant and let the answer come from him.<\/p>\n
I wanted that answer.<\/p>\n
I was also afraid of what it might ask of me.<\/p>\n
It is one thing to imagine that someone is preparing something kind.<\/p>\n
It is another thing to stand in front of that person and learn what they have actually been trying to say.<\/p>\n
A surprise can be lovely.<\/p>\n
It can also reveal how much two people have misunderstood each other.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to decide which kind of moment waited for us.<\/p>\n
I wanted to let it happen.<\/p>\n
Still, I found myself thinking about the garage whenever the house grew quiet.<\/p>\n
I could see the photographs.<\/p>\n
I could see the paper held up with blue painter's tape.<\/p>\n
I could picture Wendell's pencil resting behind his ear.<\/p>\n
The sawdust on his old blue work shirt had seemed like such an ordinary detail at the time.<\/p>\n
Now I remembered it because it reminded me that he had been in the middle of work when I saw him.<\/p>\n
He hadn't been standing there waiting for me to discover anything.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps he had expected me to see something eventually.<\/p>\n
I didn't know.<\/p>\n
I had to stop myself from turning every small detail into a clue.<\/p>\n
Not everything was a clue.<\/p>\n
Sometimes a pencil was just a pencil.<\/p>\n
Sometimes paint was just paint.<\/p>\n
And sometimes the most important thing in a room was not the object itself but the conversation that had not yet happened around it.<\/p>\n
That was what I needed from Wendell.<\/p>\n
A conversation.<\/p>\n
Not another vague reassurance.<\/p>\n
Not another stretch of time in which I had to decide what his silence meant.<\/p>\n
I wanted to understand why the date mattered.<\/p>\n
I wanted to understand why he had written those three words.<\/p>\n
And I wanted to understand why he had kept me away from his house for so long.<\/p>\n
I didn't think those were unreasonable questions.<\/p>\n
I also knew that the answers might be complicated.<\/p>\n
I could accept that.<\/p>\n
I had lived through enough of life to know that the truth was not always simple.<\/p>\n
People carried memories they struggled to share.<\/p>\n
They made decisions out of fear.<\/p>\n
They waited too long because they believed they were protecting someone.<\/p>\n
Sometimes they were protecting themselves instead.<\/p>\n
I couldn't know whether any of that described Wendell.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to put motives into his heart without hearing him speak.<\/p>\n
But I wanted him to understand that the effect of his silence had been real, regardless of what he intended.<\/p>\n
I had wondered whether I belonged in his life.<\/p>\n
I had wondered whether he trusted me.<\/p>\n
I had wondered whether I was being patient or merely afraid to ask for what I needed.<\/p>\n
Those questions had occupied more of my thoughts than I wanted to admit.<\/p>\n
I didn't blame him for every uneasy feeling I had carried.<\/p>\n
Some of those feelings came from my own past.<\/p>\n
Some came from the loss of Dwight.<\/p>\n
Some came from the simple truth that beginning again was difficult.<\/p>\n
But Wendell and I had created this particular uncertainty together, even if neither of us had meant to.<\/p>\n
And we would have to find our way through it together, too.<\/p>\n
I thought about Dwight and the life we had shared.<\/p>\n
For years, I had known what it meant to belong to someone else's daily routine.<\/p>\n
I had known the comfort of being expected.<\/p>\n
I had known the small security of hearing another person's footsteps and recognizing them without looking up.<\/p>\n
When that life ended, I had wondered whether I would ever feel that kind of closeness again.<\/p>\n
I hadn't expected to find it with Wendell.<\/p>\n
I hadn't expected to care about another man's questions, his habits, or the things he chose not to say.<\/p>\n
But I did.<\/p>\n
That was why the paper mattered.<\/p>\n
If Wendell had been a casual acquaintance, I would not have spent so much time thinking about his house.<\/p>\n
I would not have remembered his expression in the garage.<\/p>\n
I would not have wondered what he meant by calling me his Winnie.<\/p>\n
I cared because he mattered to me.<\/p>\n
And because he mattered, I needed to be honest about what I felt.<\/p>\n
I could not ask him to make me feel safe every minute.<\/p>\n
No one could promise that.<\/p>\n
But I could ask him not to leave me guessing about something that touched our relationship.<\/p>\n
I could ask him to trust me with the truth.<\/p>\n
I could offer him the same in return.<\/p>\n
That seemed fair.<\/p>\n
As I went through the days before Christmas, I tried to make room for the holiday itself.<\/p>\n
I didn't want every thought to circle back to the garage.<\/p>\n
I wanted to remember the parts of the season that had always mattered to me.<\/p>\n
The familiar routines.<\/p>\n
The small preparations.<\/p>\n
The memories that arrived without being invited.<\/p>\n
Some of those memories made me smile.<\/p>\n
Others left a quiet ache behind.<\/p>\n
I had stopped expecting grief to follow a schedule.<\/p>\n
It came when it came.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it appeared in the middle of an ordinary task.<\/p>\n
Sometimes it stayed away for hours, then returned because of a song or a date.<\/p>\n
I could love Wendell and still miss Dwight.<\/p>\n
I could look forward to Christmas and still feel the weight of the Christmases that had passed.<\/p>\n
There was no need to choose one feeling and reject the other.<\/p>\n
I wished I had understood that sooner.<\/p>\n
It might have saved me from treating happiness as something I needed to apologize for.<\/p>\n
Wendell had never asked me to forget Dwight.<\/p>\n
That was one of the things I valued about him.<\/p>\n
He had listened when I spoke about my husband.<\/p>\n
He had allowed my memories to remain part of the conversation.<\/p>\n
I wanted to offer Wendell that same kind of room.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to know he could tell me something difficult without having to make it sound perfect.<\/p>\n
But he had to tell me.<\/p>\n
I couldn't listen to words he never spoke.<\/p>\n
That thought stayed with me.<\/p>\n
It was simple.<\/p>\n
It was fair.<\/p>\n
And it reminded me that love was not only about being gentle with another person.<\/p>\n
It was also about being brave enough to let them know where you stood.<\/p>\n
I had been gentle.<\/p>\n
Now I needed to be brave.<\/p>\n
I didn't have to rehearse the conversation every night.<\/p>\n
I didn't have to prepare for every possible answer.<\/p>\n
I only had to remember the things I knew were true.<\/p>\n
I cared about Wendell.<\/p>\n
I wanted to understand him.<\/p>\n
I needed honesty.<\/p>\n
And I was willing to listen.<\/p>\n
Those four things were enough to carry into the next conversation.<\/p>\n
I still hoped December 24 would bring something good.<\/p>\n
I hoped the yellow paper had been written with affection.<\/p>\n
I hoped the photographs and the paint belonged to something Wendell wanted to share with me.<\/p>\n
But I wasn't going to let hope answer the questions before he did.<\/p>\n
I had made that mistake too many times in my own mind.<\/p>\n
This time, I wanted to be present for the truth.<\/p>\n
Whatever it was, I wanted to hear it from him.<\/p>\n
The yellow paper remained a small, bright image in my memory.<\/p>\n
Three words.<\/p>\n
One date.<\/p>\n
A piece of painter's tape at each side.<\/p>\n
It wasn't enough to tell me what would happen.<\/p>\n
But it was enough to remind me that a conversation was waiting.<\/p>\n
I could let that be true without making it frightening.<\/p>\n
For now, I would wait for the day to arrive.<\/p>\n
I would keep living my life.<\/p>\n
And when Wendell was ready to speak, I would be ready to hear him.<\/p>\n
The closer Christmas Eve came, the harder it became to think of the date as ordinary. I knew the day would arrive whether I understood Wendell's plans or not. The … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-every-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17924,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17904\/revisions\/17924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}