My beloved and I have been married for twenty-six years and been together for thirty-one. To celebrate our anniversary this weekend, we opted to go on a bike ride.

This would all be very nice and sweet if:

1. My bike actually fit my body frame.
2. I was in better shape.
3. I didn’t have this weird grieving process going on (I’m being saracastic here).

I bought a bike three, four years ago. I love my bike. I have ridden my bike. I bought my bike at a discount store and thought that it fit me perfectly. Nope. I need the handlebars to be raised an inch or so and brought closer to my body by an inch.

Trying a bike in a store that is jampacked with discount goods is, upon reflection, not the best way to make sure that I know what the hell I’m doing. But, at the time, the bike was a good price and seemed to be the right length for me. And when I’ve done ten mile rides with my husband in the past, the handlebar situation didn’t seem to be a situation. But, today, it really was.

A year before I bought my bike, I had minor surgery to remove a lipoma in my right arm. Not that big a deal, right? But, sadly, it has actually weakened my right arm and I’m prone to tingling and pain in my hand when I’m carrying too much weight in that hand. Okay. Again, I thought that wouldn’t affect me. And I was wrong. Because as my beloved and I rode along the river, my right wrist swelled a little bit and the tingling started. On top of that, my left hand has decided to do this weird numbness at the base of my palm.

Dang it.

And it doesn’t help that my shape is rather roundish and my muscular stamina is depleted. So what seemed like not that big of a deal because we were riding on a former rail trail (so it’s relatively flat) was actually hard at times because: my hands were killing me and I have seriously no energy.

Dang it!

Because throughout the years of my brother’s disease and the weeks he was in hospice and then those final days, my beloved has been at my side. Sure, you might be saying “Well, where else would he be?” I don’t know. Work? Because we have bills to pay and we’re trying to help support our children through their university years. And the man has been working overtime like a beast. Plus, he volunteers time with Boy Scouts. Oh, and he takes care of things around the house. And actually indulges in his own interests at times, just like any other human being.

Time is sparse and leaks through the hourglass at every moment it can find a hairline crack. And given my beloved as a ninety minute commute, one way, our ability to carve out time to spend together is hard to come by. So, yeah. Moments like today is important to me.

Grieving has a way of sneaking up on me. It likes to gnaw away at my energy and I shoo it away like an obnoxious fly. But it keeps sliding up behind my shoulder, its quiet voice tickling my ear. I miss my brother daily. I think about him all the time, glance at his pictures on my phone. I keep wanting to touch him and come away with cool fingertips.

And when I stare at the space in front of me, lost in some memory or cycling through the emotions, I can feel my beloved waiting for me. He doesn’t ask me to “get over it” (I’m so sorry, Jenny, that I once said that to you. I was so friggin’ stupid and naive). He doesn’t get frustrated or impatient that I’m momentarily standing at a crossroads trying to walk forward when my feet skate sideways. He just waits patiently for me. And when I reach out and slide my fingers into his palm, he gives me three quick squeezes and then relaxes his hand. I can hold his hand. I can pull mine away.

But we are together.

So, yeah. My hand has a numb spot. My ankles ache. And I’m feeling older than I should. But in the other room, my beloved is watching a YouTube video on cooking and the musical soundtrack is light and relaxing. So I’m going to go into our living room and curl up in a chair close to him and elevate my feet and be thankful that, in the end, I have him in my life.