For more than ten thousand and sixty five days I had one person who I admired more than any other and who admired me. Regardless of how annoyed we would become with each other he would put his arms around my waist and whisper, "It's O.K." Even when I dropped an outboard motor into the deepest part of the channel in the ICW after he had spent endless hours rebuilding it, he put his arms around my waist and said, "It's O.K." Then he muttered something about expecting me to purchase a new one. But, hey, would I expect to do less?
There was this one day he came rumming inside when he heard my blood curling screams. Blood was gushing from my finger so profusely that it covered my left foot. When my rescuer was leaning down trying to figure out where my foot was cut, I slipped on the floor kicking him in the face. Crying like a baby I finally got the message out that it was my finger that got cut while washing a glass. Without a flinch, he looked me in the eye and said, "It's O.K."
On another sunny afternoon when I defeated myself in a sailboard regatta by not being able to get out through the surf my custom board builder bought me a 'Morey Boogie Board.' As he handed it to me, he said, "It's O.K. you just need to learn how to handle the surf.
After sobbing for hours during a horrible PMS experience, he brought me a flower and said, "It's O.K."
Well, now my flower boy, my surfer guy, my mentor, my lover, and friend, is gone. After thirty years of building our life together, mostly agreeing but even on the things we disagreed about, he would always say, "It's O.K." Now, everyone seems to ask me if I am O.K. During the first two months since he passed through heaven's door, I would respond to their inquiry, by saying Yea, I'm O.K. But, no more. As the first rain storm of the season holds my gaze, I know I am not O.K. There is this void, this terrible loss, this feeling of emptiness, this dam nagging heartache, that those who keep their wedding vow will one day endure.
When does Kubla Ross say it's o.k. to have a pity party? When does another knight in shining armor rescue me from this sense that I am not O.K. I don't feel O.K. I laugh, I sail, I learn, I flirt, I dream, I sleep, I work, I wonder whether he ever wandered or not; but it really matters not. I know he loved me. I know he freed me to sail around the world, because as a mortal man that for Danny was never O.K. As much as I love him, our house and our neighborhood, I have to find another life, a life I spent forty years dreaming about. A life of adventure, of challenge, and intringue. I have to find a way to be O.K. And, that begins with finding the right boat.
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