My love

 How we met

    I got a job working for JC Penney in 2007.  The store was brand-new, and my job was to help stock it in preparation for opening.  I remember seeing a man running back and forth from the dock to the offices to the floor to wherever; he was just always going somewhere, always busy.  I was busy, too, stocking the towels, or the pillows, or whatever else needed stocking.  Once the store finally opened and I was assigned to the early morning stocking crew, I officially met the busy man, aka Troy.  We worked the same shift, but he was the receiver, so he mostly worked on the dock.  Sometimes he would help us stockers unloading boxes and getting product ready to be taken out to the floor, and that's how I started getting to know him.  I found him to be a genuinely kind man, very charming, and funny. Eventually, I started confiding in some members of the stocking crew, and Troy, about the problems I was having in my marriage (I was married to a cheating liar for 4 years).  
    One day, I'm not sure why, Troy gave me his phone number. We had been getting along really well at work, fast becoming friends.  He was my favorite person there, but everyone there liked him.  He was just such a nice guy, and always ready to lend a hand.  Anyway, I called him that night.  I really needed someone to talk to, and Troy was a great listener.  My husband worked the overnight shift at a grocery store, so I would spend the whole night talking to Troy sometimes. He showed me that not all men were scumbags by just being himself.  He was so down to earth and funny and charming.  I never wanted to hang up.  Around that time, I had been on an antidepressant for a couple of months, and I was feeling braver, so I finally filed for divorce from my husband.  It was finalized 10 days later, and then I was with Troy.  My family thought it was going to be a rebound fling . . . but I fell in love.
    Our first date- we went on a tuesday after work, still wearing our red JC Penney shirts, to the 50-cent movies. We saw the first Transformers movie.  Haha, I had already seen it, but he hadn't, so he actually wanted to watch it. I had other plans. I waited until the movie had been playing a short while, and then I asked him if he was going to kiss me. He did, and that was our first kiss. 

Our time together

    We moved into an apartment together in November of 2007, I was pregnant with our first child by February of 2008, and we got married in April that year.  We moved to a rental house in winter of 2008, and bought a house in 2011.  He introduced me to a lot of excellent movies I had never wanted to watch before, and I encouraged him to read more books.  We had a lot of ups and downs, including dealing with our 2nd child's congenital heart defect and everything that entailed.  We lived paycheck to paycheck for our entire relationship, with him working full time and me working part time while the kids were little.  
    When the kids were old enough to stay home alone for short periods of time, I got a full-time job.  Troy liked to visit me at my lunch break and take me to Hideaway Pizza.  When he started a new job about 2 years ago, he was able to text me throughout the work day.  He would also call me at my breaks, so I could talk to him twice a day. I would also call him when I got off work, and sometimes talked to him the whole drive home.  He always made sure that I knew how much he loved me.  Our routine at home after work for the last 2 years was to watch the news, eat dinner, watch our shows together, and then go to bed.  We were so connected- nobody has ever known me as well as he did.

The end

    After 17 years together, Troy was diagnosed with a glioma in his brain stem.  Essentially, there was no cure, and he was dying.  He was gone in a week.  I was devastated- he had been hiding the symptoms from me, so I was blindsided by the diagnosis and there was no time to prepare.  I spent his last two days lying in the hospital bed with him while he was unresponsive.  I had to sign a DNR, because that's what he would've wanted.  And then I had to watch him pass away in my arms.  It's been almost 5 weeks now, and it still doesn't seem real.

4th of July, 2024