Oh, the memories!

Everytime I go to Oakland or somewhere in the vicinity there are a couple things I do...

1. I drive from the apartment to Alameda taking the streets. Even if I don't leave the car, or park at all, that drive back and forth helps me feel your presence. So many memories of the many times we've driven that route as a family, or just you and me, run through my mind.

2. I drive to the temple. While there I think about that day back in 2004 when you played tour guide and took me all around Oakland. I was born there, but raised in Vallejo, so you wanted to teach me all about "The Town". The temple was one of the places you brought me and even when you were still here with us, driving past it always brought me back to the beginning of us.

3. I drive the last route you drove. From the apartment to 106th and MacArthur. I took this picture on Friday while out that way.

It may have been taken in the daytime with more cars around, but minus all that - it's possibly the last thing you saw before the collision that took your life. I find myself staring at this picture a lot since Friday. Playing out various "story-lines" in my head. What was playing on the radio - music or a sermon? Was the window open? What were you thinking about?

Sometimes I think more self-defeating thoughts like the "what if" or the "coula, shoulda, woulda" games...but definately not as much as I used to. (Just had to throw that tid-bit in there so you know I'm getting better.)

One thing I love to do, if I'm by myself, is walk the Berkeley pier. Rembereing you teaching the girls to fish, walking to the end and back together, and that one night when Monse came to visit when you walked her and Keila halfway down - even in the freezing, windy cold, just to try and get a good picture of San Francisco across the water.

Sometimes I go to Benicia and stand in the spot where you took my face in your hands and said "so you're my soul mate".

On that note...I MISS YOU! I love you, I miss you, and I thank God for you. 1434