I just... I don't know what to do with myself anymore. It’s 2:17 AM and I’m out here walking the north field, the one with the old fence line that always needed fixing, just like I used to do with her. Every morning, for forty-three years, I’d wake up and the first thing was the coffee brewing, then I’d check on her, just a little pat on the shoulder, "morning, love," before heading out to the barn. Now it’s just me. I retired last spring, you know, after all that time at the co-op, driving that truck, and I thought, finally, I’d have time for the farm, for her. And then… she was gone, three weeks after my last shift. Like the universe was just waiting for me to be truly alone. Now I walk these fields, same path every day, past the big oak, down to the creek, checking the sprinklers even though it rained all afternoon yesterday. It’s like I’m still punched in, but there’s no time card, no boss, no one to tell me what to do. I’m 60 next month, I was supposed to be enjoying this, spending my days with her, maybe planting that bigger garden she always wanted. Instead, I’m just… wandering. And then I think about all those times she’d ask me to just *sit* with her, just for five minutes, and I’d always say "later, honey, gotta finish this, gotta get that done." ALWAYS something more important than just being there. And now "later" is never coming, is it? And that’s the thing that really gets me, that eats at me. All those "laters." I had forty-three years, and I still put work first, even the farm work that was supposed to be *our* life. I’d be out there checking the corn, counting the rows, making sure everything was perfect for the market, while she was inside, just wanting to talk about her day, or what she saw on TV. And I just… brushed it off. Like I had all the time in the world. And now I have all the time in the world, and I don't know who I am without the schedule, without the truck, without her to come home to. It’s just this empty space where everything used to be. And I feel like I wasted so much of it. What kind of person does that? What kind of husband? I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for those "laters.