September 1st, 2026
Dear Sandy:
Today, September First, 2026 is the Second Anniversary of our Wedding in 1979 that I have spent without you. You passed away on June 9th of 2025 and although I thought I was doing Okay throughout that first year alone I discovered on the Anniversary of your death this year that I had been kidding myself. Since I realized that it had been a year without you I have found myself getting much more deeply depressed than I had been previously.
It is on holidays or anniversaries like today that it really hits me that you are gone, really gone and will never be coming back.
I start to have visions of the morning you died and collapsed on the bathroom floor and the EMS People worked on you for a long time before taking you to the hospital. I remember two Doctors coming into the room where I was waiting and I knew what they were going to say before they said it.
"We did everything we could but she didn't make it."
I began to feel faint but they put me in a wheelchair and admitted me to the emergency Room to check my vital signs and my sugar level. When our daughter arrived we both went to see you and we were both astounded by how beautiful and peaceful you looked.
A lot has happened since you sailed away to heaven.
Our daughter took me down to her new home in Havertown for the week after we left the hospital. I'm sure you would be very proud of our daughters and our other relatives who have all been very kind and considerate to me since you passed. I have spent a good deal of time with our daughters and their families over the past year. Actually both of our daughters and their families now live in Havertown, which is on the Main Line right on the outskirts of Philadelphia.
I will be moving to Havertown myself shortly. I just signed a lease on a very nice but very small Apartment very close to "The Kelly Center" which is modeled after the "Godfrey Daniels" Music Club that has operated for years in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Kelly Center has a lot of musical happenings that I hope to take part in.
I know you will be happy for me but also a little jealous at the same time. In a way I will be living your dream of residing closer to your daughters and granddaughters. I know that this was your dream and I'm so sorry that it didn't come true for you. Although you wanted to move closer to the girls you loved our house and all of the pictures and antiques in it. I love our house too but I am willing to give up what I need to to be closer to our daughters and granddaughters.
Shortly after your Funeral Celebration Our daughter was able to set me up with a program called Grief Share. This program is a national program that is generally conducted through local churches. Grief Share was helpful to me to help me see that I was not alone in my grief. There were several other people in the program who had also lost people close to them.
I was also very lucky in the past year to find a place to play my guitar and sing close to home on certain Saturday mornings. The place was a health food restaurant called Cafe 23 in Emmaus, Pa.
All in all it has been a very lonely year for me. Although neither of us was in the greatest shape for the past few years We had each other to hang out with, to talk to and to watch Television with and even sometimes get stoned with each other. I have loved you for a long time and will always love you and know that I was lucky enough to love you and have you in my life for a long time. I know that my time on this earth is limited. Your death has taught me that. But in the time that I have left I will always have your love and life to look back on and realize how lucky I was to love you and share a life with you for as long as I had you in my life.
I miss you like crazy but I will never regret sharing the love that we had for each other during the time that we had together.
Sincerely Yours
Jerry Gallagher
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