All this thinking and this .....thinking and wondering ...

I buried my kitty today. Not an easy thing to do. Like losing your kid or something. Tori had him when I met her, over 4 years ago. He used to hide in this patch of daffodils by her front porch and pounce on my feet when I'd walk by. The whole time I was digging, I kept thinking about that. It seems like a lifetime ago.
Tori and I only "dated" for a year and 4 months. But I can honestly say, that was the happiest time of my life. Since we lived in separate states, I only saw her on weekends. Man did I look forward to weekends! Every single one was an adventure. I have no bad memories from that era.
Actually, I have no bad memories of my marriage for the first year and a half. I wish there was a way to turn back the clock and start over. All those things I'd do differently. All the things I should have said and didn't, and shouldn't have said and did.
Shortly after Tori left me, I stood in my neighbor's yard and talked to her about what was going on. Like me, she was struggling to make sense of it all. She and Tori had become best friends, almost like sisters. When she and her husband had maritial problems the year before, she had been on the verge of leaving her husband. But Tori talked her out of it and encouraged her to hang in there and tough it out and make it work. So they went to marriage counseling and toughed it out and made it work!!!!!
And here it was less than a year later, and now Tori was the one who wanted to leave. And no matter what my neighbor said to her, she couldn't change her mind. She was at a loss to explain it like me. I remember her shaking her head .... she said Tori told her right after we moved there, that I was the "man of her dreams" ... her "prince" .... her "soulmate" ... "everything I've ever dreamed about." That she would never leave me in a thousand years and she thanked the Lord for me every night.
"I wish I knew what to tell you, Todd," she told me over and over. "I really tried to make her see the light the way she helped me... but she just refused to try."
So many unanswered questions. I wish I had the answers. I wish I could just sit down with Tori and say, "Start from the beginning and lets figure out where it all went wrong."
But I'm not holding my breath that will ever happen!