Time Hop

Diary Entry

June 3, 2026 (Mayhurst Deck)

A year ago today was the last full day of your life.

Today feels like a time hop. Not the kind that shows up neatly packaged in an app, but the kind that arrives uninvited. Flash after flash. Memory after memory. Tiny moments surfacing and disappearing before I can hold them.

I find myself scrolling through our text messages from June 3, 2025.

You had worked that day. I was working from home when the painters showed up unannounced. They didn’t speak English. I was trying to work while also trying to figure out what was happening. I texted you, frustrated and anxious, only to discover you had no idea they were coming either.

What I remember most is not the painters.

I remember being proud.

Proud of us.

Proud of how we were handling life together.

A younger version of me would have made my anxiety your responsibility. A younger version of me would have demanded reassurance. Instead, I called, asked what I needed to ask, and handled what needed handling. We were a team. Not perfect. Just steady. I hope you felt it too. I hope you knew how good we were.

You sent me a Zillow listing that day.

2915 Ridgeway Avenue.

You were always finding our next home. You never stopped looking ahead. When you sent a house listing, it wasn’t casual. It meant something. It meant the wheels were turning. It meant you could see the next chapter taking shape.

And we were ready. We had already started saying it out loud.

This is the year.

Maybe we wouldn’t make it to Costa Rica yet, but this was the year we would begin making the moves that eventually got us there. Simplify. Sell. Build something different. Create a life with a little less obligation and a little more freedom.

I can still feel the excitement of that season. The feeling of next. The feeling of choosing our future together.

Later that afternoon we texted about our timesheets. Both of us were late submitting them.

Oops.

We owned the business. No one was coming after us except us. We laughed about it and finished them anyway.

The city was wrapped in that particular Cincinnati summer heat. Humidity hung in the air and settled into the sidewalks. The kind of thick morning heat that makes everything feel damp before the sun burns it away.

The exterior of the house had just been painted. The work itself was beautiful.

The yellow was not.

I hated it immediately.

You didn’t argue. You didn’t defend the choice. You didn’t tell me I was wrong.

You laughed.

Then you Marco Poloed your two best friends and, in typical Patrick fashion, diplomatically reported that “some people don’t like the yellow.”

Some people.

Meaning me.

We called Andy. He gave us another color suggestion. The missing piece. Suddenly the house had depth. Character. Warmth. We looked at it and immediately knew.

Yes. That’s it.

Funny how much of our life was built from moments exactly like that. Small decisions. Tiny course corrections. A shared vision. A willingness to listen to each other.

I love you so much.

I miss my life with you every day.

Sometimes I like to imagine there is another version of reality where time never fractured. A place where June 4th arrived and passed like every other day. A place where we kept going.

Maybe in that life we bought 2915 Ridgeway Avenue. Maybe we’ve lived there for ten months now. Maybe we’re sitting in the kitchen this morning, or out on the deck with coffee. You’re getting ready to mow the lawn. I’m writing. We are talking about Costa Rica and wondering how soon we can make it happen.

I think about those people often.

I am happy for them.

I hope they know how lucky they are.

As for me, I am here. Trying every day to carry our love story forward. Trying every day to figure out how to write chapters I never wanted to write.

Because there is a part of me that still believes the best years of my life were the years I spent with you.

And maybe that’s true.

But what I know for certain is that I wanted more of them.

I wanted more mornings. More houses. More Costa Rica plans. More of us laughing. More years.

I hope the last decade of your life was the best one.

Actually, I think I already know the answer.

I’m pretty sure it was.

We built something beautiful together.

A life.

But I don’t get that version of the story. What I do get is this one.

So I will continue to remember what we had. What we built. How we loved. I will continue telling the stories. I will continue carrying your name. I will continue loving.

And somewhere, in another version of the story, we’re sitting on the deck at 2915 Ridgeway Avenue drinking coffee and talking about what’s next.

The way we always did.