Yesterday would have been Liz and my 11th anniversary. On our third (and last) anniversary, in 2000, we were given a bottle and encouraged to put it away and drink in eight years. At that time the election hadn’t yet been decided, but what had been put in place in the next three months, by a power greater than any of us, was the downward spiral of my wife’s health and the last days of her life. We were cut off, never got a chance to drink that bottle of wine.
This weekend, while rooting among my wine closet I found that bottle of wine. It was an Italian wine, and it was red, and from a very good vintage. Now the issue isn’t whether the wine is ready to drink. I’m not sure I am.The last eight years have been a time I would never had imagined in my life. I never planned to turn 50 as a widowed person. Jobs and friendships, loves and passions have all tried to make up for the giant crater in my own personal ground zero. And yes, we do rebuild, if ever so slowly, again.
So I will put that bottle of Italian wine back in its slot in the wine rack and maybe let it rest a little more.
7 comments:
Maybe the wine will tell you when you are ready for each other, amico.
I am sorry for your loss. I feel your pain come through in this writing. I can only imagine how agonizing it all is. I couldn't drink the wine either. God bless you.
I agree with Marco. Only time will tell you when it's time to tell someone so that you can remember and enjoy and enjoy! That cork belongs to Liz!
Mi dispiace Alfonso, molto. You will know when you are ready to drink that wine.
I would not have opened the wine either.
'Fonso, just catching up...it never ceases to amaze me how you share at plain, honest depth the range of life's flowing leaps: from the day-to-day business of selling wine, to the deepest loss that can be borne by human heart-- & in such effortlessly elegant prose, too. Mille grazie, tanti baci.
I am sure there will be a time to drink that wine. The person to drink it with, now there's the rub. But that too will be clear and when it comes around, it really doesn't matter whether the juice is been past its due date or not.
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