Lent Day 28: Partner

This morning I spent too much money on all the food required for our upcoming holiday. It's the only time I don't begrudge spending money on groceries because I keep imagining where and who we are going to be sharing meals with and it gives me a real surge of joy. 

To be honest one of my best feelings is the feeling before an adventure. I love the planning and the anticipation. I love sitting with Stephen and the kids day dreaming about how it's all going to be. Sometimes the anticipation is actually more enjoyable for me than the actual holiday. 

So, having loaded all my groceries into the car I was preparing to reverse my pajero out of its parking. A wiry, bald man a few years older than me (sound familiar?)  walked up and inspected the back of my car. I then opened my window and the stranger explained to me that my tow hitch was incorrectly attached to the car.

He said, 'My wife... my late wife, had a car like this...' And then he described some complicated thing about joints and stuff. To be honest he had me at 'late wife'. 

I looked at this kind, considerate man who stopped out of care to explain something to a stranger, a woman probably similar in age to his late wife, and I wondered how many adventures he doesn't get to go on now. I imagined all the plans that involved his late wife's tow hitch that can no longer come to fruition. I was heartbroken as I thought of the life he now has to live without the person who will always be his wife in the present tense and then belatedly in the past tense. 

He walked off and I burst into tears. The man walking off, the shadow of his late wife beside him, reminding him, and me, that having someone to adventure with is the biggest adventure of all.