My book is being printed and released this week by a traditional publisher after five years of writing, editing, querying, and patience. This should be a champagne moment. I drank champagne over the weekend. At a friend's wedding. I celebrated his moment and remembered my own wedding 21 years ago. The recent death of my husband makes the book release a little hollow.
I am happy about the book, that it will live outside my own imagination now. I am also sad. Sad because he should be here. He lived through my obsession over the book. He came up with the title. He read all the sex scenes and cat-called. He will not realize its success. He will not benefit from the fruits.
I did not dedicate the book to him. He was a little pissed about that.
He loved me. I loved him. Some of the realities of love fill the pages. Not literally about my life with him, but broader, involving the spectrum of human emotion. Some of it encompasses pain. How can we love another person without a little pain? Read it. You'll understand.