Patrolman Bryan Scott Verkler

Well...here I am again. I wanted to type this before my emotions get the best of me....I am trying very hard not to think about the fact that tomorrow is start of my unofficial "countdown". It's not the traditional, happy, & overzealous countdown until Christmas either. It is the dreaded EOW.

I try not to remember the events of that night or the how's, what's, when's, where's or WHY's bc in the end it will only drive me insane. What I can only try to control is my reaction to all of it. In that choosing, I choose to remember US. The US of when we first met, how I saw your smile for the first time & knew that I had already fallen in love with you..HARD....but I barely knew you for < 1 hour...for our amazing honeymoon trip to the Kern mountains, of US fly fishing for our first time, of US taking video with that big HUGE camera.....holy cow you wouldn't believe how much has changed in the world since you've been gone. This all leads me to my last & most least part of remembering the EOW...& the sudden, horrific, & tragic loss of you. I will try to always dwell on the positive of what we had, & not concentrate on how you were taken from me. This world has always been a cruel, disruptive & calloused place....but on 12/13....the world suddenly STOPPED spinning on its axis for me.....someone had taken away our US.

The story of US was not supposed to end that way. WE would be sending our kids off to college, dealing with looking "old", & laughing hysterically at one of our 1000's of inside jokes. The story of US is the one of us looking up on Silver Strand beach in La Jolla at the fireworks at the Del that weren't exactly for US & our wedding party....but we pretended it was for US anyway. Here's to the US that got to eat our wedding cake out of the freezer a few weeks after the wedding instead of waiting a whole year so I would have to defrost the cake & stare at it forever....because we were never even allowed to celebrate one FULL year of being married together. I cannot believe it will be 20 years....but let me tell you...it has felt like 200! I miss you still like I did then.

Time never heals all wounds....that's a farce that someone came up with so they could tell it to ppl at funerals......Time doesn't heal the old wounds. It just causes a massive shrinkage of the muscle that once knew love via muscle memory. It causes atrophy, & then sudden death. The scars are intricately woven around what is left of my broken, shattered, & macerated heart....here I am....there YOU are. WE should never have been separated that is for sure.

Until we meet again My Love....

I love you now & forever more,
Your Wife

November 30, 2023