Nearly Saw Her Yesterday

I almost saw Lois yesterday.
Well, not really. I mean I know she's dead and all. I mean, for goodness' sake, I saw her die. But I nearly saw her anyway. We had the downstairs apartment here, with its own entrance. When I would come in from work, I'd walk down the wooden walkway to our door. I'd look through the glass, and there she'd be, looking like a million dollars, usually sitting in her chair reading something. Murder mysteries usually. Gosh, she loved them! She could get through one a day. Except of course yesterday she wasn't.
I mean, she's dead and all.
But still...
I always use the upstairs entrance now. But yesterday, I stopped. I looked at the back entrance and started slowly heading that way. I said out loud to myself, "Is this something you really need to be doing?"
It was.
I've gotten pretty good about corralling my imagination before I drift down one of the "black corridors of the mind" and get myself all nutty. You can do that if you're not careful and it's pretty upsetting. Sometimes messes me up all day. I have 5 or 6 pictures of us together that I really like and I've printed each one on 8 1/2 X 11 inch paper and they're in my sock drawer. Sometimes I'll just stand there and stare at one of them for the longest time. I'll really get lost in it. All kinds of emotions. Loss mainly. And regret. I think something inside of me says if I really let myself go, I can meld into the picture, reconnect with her, like an old movie where they do a dissolve and the couple is together again, holding hands and skipping along happily. It's kind of like that.
Except she's dead and all.
But yesterday, it seemed like it was okay to take a little side trip. Not too deep and not too black. I slowly walked along the walkway and was hyper aware of everything around me. The details of the wood, the plants growing next to it, the feel of the cool autumn air, the sounds of my shoes on the wood. I walked closer and felt that familiar feeling you get when you do something you've done many times before.
Except it wasn't really all that many times. We'd moved here in December of 2006. December 16. Beethoven's birthday! And 11 months later, she was gone. But many times, I'd walked along that wooden walkway and approached the door with the big window and had seen her sitting there.
I'd come in and give her a nice kiss and a big hug and call her my "Pretty Girl". Which she was. But not yesterday.
I mean she's dead and all.
It was still light outside and dark inside so there was a lot of reflection on the glass. I stood there for a long moment, staring through the glass, over toward the corner where she would have been sitting. And I just stood there. And thought. And looked. With the reflection like it was, I wasn't sure what I was looking at. It was as though if I stood there and stared long enough, I'd be able to make out details of what was inside.
I nearly saw her.