Pat has been “Driving Miss Daisy” for the last four days.  I had wanted to go back to the Gulf coast for a long time.  I thought it was to see a friend of mine who lives north of New Orleans, across Lake Pontchartrain, But as we got closer to the sand of the Gulf, I realized that I just wanted to go back.  Back to somewhere. Somewhere that I used to be.

“Where” isn’t there anymore.  It was the “Where I was” in 1956.  Six months in Pensacola, on the Gulf, where I started my 57 years with Ken.  “Where” was a feeling that I was wanting to visit.  Like I said, it isn’t there anymore.  Feelings are illusive.

The sand was just as white.  The shore stretched forever.  The Hermit crabs crawled the shore as well.  There were pink jelly fish--occasionally puffing in and out to move, and small fishes darting in and out of the waves.  But what I was looking for was gone.  I was young then.  Now, I am old. You can’t recapture your youth.  More importantly, you can’t recapture those who are gone.  They were a huge part of your life, an intricately woven description of “who you are.”  And then, in an instant, the “Who you are” is changed into “Who?  Who is? Who are? Who was I?  Or “Who am I?”

I was an appendage on the edge of a man who was larger than life.  Without him, I am only me.  Not us.  I lived his life. I was a companion, not an entity.

I am still the mother of five children.  I am still the grandmother of ten grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.  I am a Christian.  I am a mathematician.  I am a pianist, marimbist, college educator and some people say: Bible scholar.  But it’s not enough when you are less than half of who you were.  It is a lost feeling that can’t be completely found.  It can't be recaptured by going back where you started.  I found Ken on the Gulf.  He isn’t there anymore.  

But someday, I’ll get everything back--and more.  In the meantime, I will continue to find myself.  I am a writer.  I write stories.  That’s who I am for now.  It’s enough.