Before

32 months ago, Sweetness went back to school in Missouri— 2000 miles away from home, six months after leaving a career in journalism that went back to the sixth grade. I stayed in Tacoma to take care of the home base.

Two years ago, I moved to a different division for a change of pace. It meant more travel but the house was empty, anyway. A change in territory made it easier to visit Sweets for the long weekend here and there. Every time the weekend would end, I would cry for about 30 miles strait on the long drive back to the airport.

Last year, while at school, she split her head in freak accident with a “Please Wait To Be Seated” sign. “I SAID, “PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED!”” I was in California in a soulless team meeting and so powerless. If not for the help of her friends— the very good, dear, new friends— I would’ve insisted that she leave. We were both ragged and emotionally frail at the time. Leaving was always on both of our lips.

In the Fall, after a great Summer together under the same roof, I was beyond numb. She was struggling with her the crazy results in her experiment, her research assistantship (RA) became fantastically demanding. All she wanted to do was write the fucking paper and leave. We talked about the possibility of another year.

Six months ago, at home for the Winter break, those crazy experiment results were gold. Pure gold. In February her second experiment gave further heft to her dissertation. In March, I [REDACTED] my job which was great.

Since then, she caught the flu, a real one, lost the data from one of her experiments because SPSS is a piece of shit, got RA’d to death, worked 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week and just THIS WEEK caught strep throat.

In one hour she defends. How she got this far is beyond me. Her smarts amaze me. Her toughness is incredible.

This pain is about to be over and I’ll forget all the hurt and loneliness but I’ll never forget how tough this bitch is.

Goddamn, I love this woman.