Forward

Welcome...

This is my diary of the time that came after.

If you're reading this...

Well...

If you're reading this and I am not physically present, then I guess I'm dead.

I wonder how I died. Was it painful, lingering? Did I suffer long then quietly expire? When I went, was there anyone there to hold my hand, wipe my brow or say something comforting?

Those are questions maybe you can answer. But rest assured, I am no longer living, so the answers will be no comfort to me.

If I am to tell you my story and pass on this little bit of history, I need to make sure you understand the circumstances. Not that there is anything interesting about me— except that I was there that day. Where I went and what I did might make a difference to those who come later ... and, truth be told, might make me feel a little better about myself.

It was early spring in Florida. The days were warm and the nights cooled off enough to make sleeping comfortable. After several years of very dry spring seasons, this

spring was wetter and cooler than normal. The fruit hung heavy on the citrus trees and

growers talked about record harvests by summer.

The day it happened was just another day. I worked at home in those days and almost never had to be anywhere at any specific time. My wife died the year before, and I was still learning to go on alone.

I decided to have a late lunch then stop at a local shopping plaza to pick up a shower head for the guest bathroom on the way home. It was an innocuous errand on an innocuous day.

When my wife was still healthy she smiled a lot and made me smile with her. I was thinking of her that day ... how we held hands, sat on the same side of the booth at lunch and acted like high school lovers instead of old married people.

I'm glad for those old memories. It gave me comfort to remember how we loved each other and were oblivious to the rest of the world in one another's company.

That was a Monday.

Then it happened. The world suddenly turned upside down. Everyone I ever knew — along with everyone I would ever know — was no more. I was alone.

The thought persisted that maybe I would live for many years and then die alone.

Why?

Why was I still in existence when everyone else had vanished? I don't know. If I find out I will write it here, so you will also know. The question of how, why and what happened is better asked of God.

What I do know is written in these pages.