Onto some bright future somewhere
Down the road to points unknown
Sending post cards when they get there
Wherever it is they think they’re goin’
— the prophet mcmurtry

—

I’ll never knew if the bluebonnets bloomed.

They’re moving tomorrow, leaving Texas behind.

I never made it back to San Angelo after the vermin hit. I always thought there would be time. Isn’t that how life is? You always think there will be time.

But there wasn’t.

I suppose it’s too late anyhow. He doesn’t know me. I’m not sure I know me either. During our visits, we would sit quietly and look at each other. I would play Guy Clark and James McMurtry. His eyebrows would go up and his toe would tap, but that’s about as close as we got to recognition in the last year.

I should have done more. But I never knew what I could do.

And now, he’s gone, having moved to a sea of blue called “Oregon.” Like that’s a real place.

We’ll go through the motions of saying we’ll visit them in that faraway land, even though we likely won’t. Too many miles; too much baggage. I’ll drive around for another year with the zipper pillow I never took him in the back of my car. I’ll start crying on runs when I think about him. I’ll always wonder what if. What if things were different and we’d had that third act? Down the road to points unknown.

I drift back to the day a few years ago when we scattered bluebonnet seeds along our walking trail. The lady at the seed store said it was a good time to plant; they had an excellent chance of surviving. We could go out each spring to look for them, I thought. He wouldn’t remember me, but he’d recognize the little blue flowers he spent his life pursuing. Priorities, you know.

When’s the time to mourn? When someone’s mind goes? Their body? Their memory? Their Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots?

He was always there for me. And now he’s gone from the place we called home.

He’ll never know how much he meant to me. He’ll never know how much I love him.

And I’ll never know if the bluebonnets bloomed.