Down in the Dumps for Valentines Day

The last few days...maybe a week...I have been rather down in the dumps. It has been an effort to maintain my disposition of feigned cheerfulness. I spoke to a former supervisor of mine last week; whom I worked with in the INS 14 years ago. He caught me up on what was going on around my old port. Most of the people I knew and worked with are gone now. Transfered, retired, quit...or just disappeared. The last vestiges of that life are slipping away. Unfortunate too...was the word of another death.

A classmate of mine of whom I attended the Immigration Officers Academy with back in 1992...had died several years ago of a massive heart attack. They told him he needed a heart bypass...but he refused to let them do the operation. One week later he was dead. His name was Faatali Niko...and he was a very nice person. We studied together at times at the academy...usually to prepare for tests. He was still quite young...far too young to die. Had he let them do the bypass...he would likely still be here today. Why he refused? No one knows...he was married and had children. Maybe it was something related to his Samoan heritage. I guess we will never know now.

Now it is approaching February...once again. With this month comes Valentines day. Romance for some...hell for others. It was almost a year ago I had tried to apologize to Alma. It was then...after 13 years...I sent her a letter asking for her forgiveness. It was then that I had sent her a portrait I had done of her back in 1992. It was then that I stated that my love for her held just as true. Nary a word have I heard since. Did she even get it? I just don't know. I wish she would answer...even if it was to exclaim how much she hated and despised me now. It would hurt...but I would know. You would think it would be easy to accept my fate on this...but it has not. It is very difficult...the most most difficult thing I believe I have ever done. I have been unable to find another love like hers' in the last 14 years. Nor have I even dated in that time.
That is the power she carries over my life. A mighty warrior...felled by such a timid creature as she. I tremble as a leaf in the wind under her shadow. Though I may lose precious memories to time...those of her do not fade...nor wane as the years pass.

So it is that I walk this life...alone and lonely. Without her the darkness seems boundless...the air stale...and the breath...cold. Valentines Day...romance for some...hell for others.

Sigh............