One was never enough. He couldn’t stop at one beer, one game, one joke, or one woman. One good deed led to another, the same as one drug to the next.

           He lived with passion, loved to excess, screwed up with conviction, lost with honor, and never forgot a friend. He couldn’t keep a job, stay out of jail, hate anyone, or pass a person in need.

            He broke my heart one minute and caught it the next, contradicting his brawny exterior with deep sorrow and feather light caresses.

            His failure to manage his life didn’t keep him from protecting mine. As years passed and he lived more in than out of the drugged fog, he always climbed from the hole when I needed him. I saw him at funerals, heard from him when I was sick. He carried furniture when I moved, never missed a birthday, Mother’s Day, or divorce, and showed up to catch tears when I hurt.

            He died before my body gave in to disability, but left his love behind to carry me. Often, as I lay struggling to adjust to my new life, his smile brightened my days. Remembering his free-spirited outlook sparked hope that I would either recover my spirit or learn to lose with honor the way he had.

            Accustomed to pain and resolved to fate, I went to bed one night without giving my new symptoms a second thought. Hours later, patience exhausted and fear moving in, I considered giving up. How much willpower kept me alive, and would it all be over if I let it go?

            I recognized the feather light touch immediately, and the spirit that crawled into bed beside me. The touch became a caress, followed by a full hug with an invisible shoulder to carry my weight. Somehow, I knew it would be the last time he visited. Maybe he gave everything he had left to me that night.

            Maybe he knew one was enough this time.