The Last &”I Love You&”

Carol’s husband was killed in an accident last year. Jim, only fifty-two years old, was driving home from work. The other driver was a teenager with a very high blood-alcohol level. Jim died instantly. The teenager was in the emergency room for less than two hours.

There were other ironic twists: It was Carol’s fiftieth birthday, and Jim had two plane tickets to Hawaii in his pocket. He was going to surprise her. Instead,he was killed by a drunk driver.

“How have you survived this?” I finally asked Carol, a year later.

Her eyes welled up with tears. I thought I had said the wrong thing,but she gently took my hand and said,”It’s all right;! want to tell you. The day I married Jim,I promised I would never let him leave the house in the morning without telling him I loved him. He made Links Of London the same promise. It got to be a joke between us,and as babies came along,it got to be a hard promise to keep. I remember running down the driveway, saying ‘I love you’through clenched teeth when I was mad,or driving to the office to put a note in his car. It was a funny challenge.

“We made a lot of memories trying to say ‘I love you’ before noon every day of our married life.

“The morning Jim died, he left a birthday card in the kitchen and slipped out to the car. I heard the engine starting. Oh, no, you don’t, buster, I thought. I raced out and banged on the car window until he rolled it down.

“‘Here on my fiftieth birthday, Mr. James E. Garret,!, Carol Links London Garret,want to go on record as saying I love you]’

“That’s how I’ve survived. Knowing that the last words I said to Jim were ‘/ love you. ‘”

Debbi Smoot