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Walking my Stephanie's walk

My wife was kinda short and pudgy, with an egg-shaped face. She was cute as could be, gorgeous to me, but an uncommon combination of height, weight, and build. If she was walking toward me, I'd always know her from two blocks away, well before I could recognize her face.

And she must've had a distinctive walk, too. It's something I'd never noticed but blam, yesterday I saw it out the window of a bus.

A short, pudgy woman was crossing the street, and then she walked south on California Avenue. That woman's body shape was similar to Stephanie's, but she was a little taller. What made me do a doubletake was that she had the same walk.

I'd never known that Stephanie had a specific walk. If you'd asked me, I'd've thought you were a kook. She walked like anyone else. She wasn't Monty Python, and there aren't that many ways to walk. Something must've been different about the mechanics of her footsteps, though, because jeez, there it was, yesterday out the window of a bus.

What's even weirder is that Stephanie was in a wheelchair for the last seven years of her life. And for a few years before that, she had an uncomfortable limp. And she's been dead for four years, so it's been about a dozen years since I've seen Stephanie's ordinary walk.

I saw it yesterday, though, and there was no mistaking it. That woman across the street was walking my Stephanie's walk.

Ask me HOW Stephanie's walk was distinctive, and I couldn't possibly describe it, because I have no idea. All I know is, I saw someone walking her walk on California Avenue.

Watching that woman cross the street and turn left wasn't like seeing a ghost, but it blew me back in time to so many million times I saw Stephanie walking around.

So the old man staring out the bus's window with a tear running down his cheek? That was me.

 1/6/2023   

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing that. It doesn't get easier as the years pass, despite what people would like you to believe. To this day when one of my departed friends/loved ones pops into a dream I wake up with a combination of sadness and elation; sadness knowing they're gone, but elation in seeing them again and knowing that this may be their way of letting me know they're still very much alive and well...just not here.

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    1. I look forward to sleep, my only chance to see my wife and a few old friends. Last night I was getting laid off again, and got to tell off the company president, plus steal a stapler that I still miss.

      The dreams of the departed, especially my wife, are what I love best in life. That and my penis. By comparison, everything else is meh, even Doctor Who.

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