Fingerpainting with Jesus

please forgive the delay experiencing technical difficulties

My closest friend during graduate school got married the week after we graduated. I had just moved into my apartment, and Eric and I were sleeping on the floor. I didn’t have chairs or a bed. I had a lamp.

One.

The day after the wedding, Eric was leaving to go home to Vegas for the summer. This was going to be our last day together until he returned in the Fall. The wedding was absolutely on the outer limits of the New York Transit system. Dressed for a wedding we had to get on a wubway train, ride all the way to the end, get on a bus, and then ride to the end of the bus line, and then walk another ten blocks

The wedding program done had been homemade thanks to cheesy graphics courtesy of Deluxe Print Shop. (How's that a trip in the Way Back Machine for ya?) The reception to the wedding was in the basement where Sunday School was held. On the wall in multicolored handprints it said, "Jesus is Love." After the wedding we waited downstairs for two hours with no food. The caterer forgot the drinks. There was no liquor because the bride's mother was a recovering alcoholic. But finally we ate and danced. I don't remember the long trip home.

Despite being so exhausted we couldn’t find the energy to order food, he made love to me on the floor of the apartment. Afterwards, I didn’t want to sleep, he would be gone soon. He stroked my hair and told me that everything would be alright, we would talk on the phone and before I knew it, he would be back. I was afraid he would fall out of love with me or find some other woman. He told me he had the best woman in the world, and he sang to me “You are My Sunshine.”

Eventually we fell asleep wrapped in each others arms.

And everything was OK just like he said.

For about another 6 months.