Chapter 22

Do you hear me,
I'm talking to you
Across the water across the deep blue ocean
Under the open sky, oh my, baby I'm trying
Boy I hear you in my dreams
I feel your whisper across the sea
I keep you with me in my heart
You make it easier when life gets hard

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again

They don't know how long it takes
Waiting for a love like this
Every time we say goodbye
I wish we had one more kiss
I'll wait for you I promise you, I will

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Lucky we're in love every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday

And so I'm sailing through the sea
To an island where we'll meet
You'll hear the music fill the air
I'll put a flower in your hair
Though the breezes through trees
Move so pretty you're all I see
As the world keeps spinning round
You hold me right here right now~Lucky – Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat

February 10^th, 2014

“…Happy Birthday to you!!” the song finished as I watched Maddie look around the kitchen at her family and friends.  Her eyes were a bright, sparkling blue and her smile was almost as big as her face.  She was the spitting image of her mother except the color of her hair was a darker blonde like mine was when I was her age.

“Can I blow out my candles now, Daddy?” she asked me.

“Of course you may! But you need to make sure you make a wish!” I whispered loudly to her as I leaned down over her shoulder.

Before I could tell her that she was supposed to keep her wish a secret she yelled out, “I want to be a firefighter like my mommy!” and that quick she blew out the candles that were sticking out of the fire truck cake she insisted on having.

She didn’t hear the sharp breath I heard my mom take in, all she heard was the air rushing out of her lungs and the laughter and clapping that came from the 10 party guests surrounding her.  “Grandpop Charlie!” she squealed.  “You are in charge of taking the candles out of my cake!  I don’t want Daddy to burn himself again.”

Everyone broke out in laughter as I looked down at my wrapped finger and shrugged as I smiled at my little girl.  I had a little accident when I went to light the candles on her cake.  Same smart ass remarks her mother used to make.

End of August, 2010…

For the first couple weeks I couldn’t get myself to even get out of bed.  My mom kept Maddie with her for a while because she was afraid to leave a little baby with a guy that couldn’t even seem to take care of himself.  The hockey season was quickly approaching and I hadn’t even lifted a finger to weight lift a pen.  I was out of shape and out of time.

Drew and Stacy stopped over often to check on me but they could only do so much.  The house was basically trashed because I refused to clean up after myself.  One morning I awoke to find Stacy and my mom cleaning the house from top to bottom with scowls on their faces as I walked down the steps in just my boxers, looking like a hung over mess.

“Would you look at yourself, Patrick Kaleta?!  My mom yelled dragging me towards a mirror that hung on the wall by the door.  “What happened to my son?!  You are not buried in the ground with Emma, you are still walking this earth and you have responsibilities that you need to take care of.  This,” she said the word harshly as she poked me in the chest, “Is your first priority and the little girl that has been living at my house for the past 6 weeks, screaming for her daddy is your 2^nd priority!” she cried as tears of frustration poured down her face.  “You need help.  You need grief counseling.  Everyone deals with it differently and you obviously can’t do this by yourself.  You have to get your ass back in shape for your job and you need to become a father again.”

“I need my wife back,” I mumbled as I shuffled away from the ugly image and over to the fridge to grab a beer.  I don’t care if it’s only 10:30 in the morning.

“If you had your wife back and she saw you acting like this she would have kicked your ass out long ago,” my mother spit as she turned to go back cleaning up my mess.

The next day I was sitting on my dock, fishing and drinking some beer as I stared out over Lake Erie.

“Anything biting?” Charlie asked as he approached me from behind, effectively startling my solitude state.

“Meh, not much,” I said as I allowed my heart rate to slow.  “Did mom send you over to give me shit too?” I asked bitterly, completely tired of everyone telling me how I should get over the fact that my wife and soul mate was dead.

“She just told me that you looked like shit.  I can see she wasn’t lying…”

I just snorted, pulled my baseball hat lower to shield my eyes and attempted to take another sip of my beer.  As I lifted it to my lips, Charlie pulled the bottle out of my hands and placed an envelope in my hands.  “Here son, I should have given this to you weeks ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  However, I think you need this more than you need this skunky ass beer.  If you need anything, call me.  I’m going to pick up Maddie so your parents can get a break from her for the time being.”

I didn’t watch him leave, I just heard him walk back down the dock towards the house and drop the bottle into the recycling bin with a crash.  I sat and stared at the envelope in my hand, knowing right away whose tear smeared handwriting I was looking at on the front of it where it said my name.

Dear Patty,

If you are reading this, then the unthinkable has happened.  I’m so sorry to leave you behind to raise our darling baby girl, but I know you will do a great job.  Baby, I hope you realize how much you have meant in my life, not only this last year of being a couple, but as a best friend.  I will never be able to repay you for telling my father off after my graduation (yes, I heard it all) and I will never be able to apologize for making you wait so long for me.  I want you to know that I wanted to be with you long before I truly admitted it to myself, but I would never give up that night you held me in your arms for the first time and told me you loved me.

Now, I’m pretty sure you are not handling this in the most mature way possible.  If I know you as well as I think I do, I’m sure your mom has Maddie and our house is trashed because you somehow forgot to clean up after yourself after a year of me cleaning up for you.  Wake-up sunshine!  You have a very important job to do.  It is up to you to be a father and a mother to our Maddie.  She’s been your little girl since day one, and I expect you to take full responsibility of her.  I know it will be tough during the season, but everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. 

Go out on that ice and break some faces if you have to do something to make yourself feel better, but know that I will still be frowning about the whole fighting thing.

Patty, thank you for loving me.  Thank you for giving me the most beautiful daughter in the world.  Please share with her all of our memories and make sure she follows her dreams like we did.  Please tell her that her mommy loved her and didn’t want to leave her, but God had other plans and now she is watching over her in Heaven.

Please tell everyone that I love them and thank them for being there for you and Maddie.

I love you Patrick Kaleta.

Love Forever and Always,

Emma

Present Day (March 2011):

I came home and dropped my gear bag on the floor.  “Hey mom!” I called over to her.  “Is she sleeping?”

I heard my mom softly chuckle, “Would you expect anything different from her at this time of night?”

I smiled to myself and darted up the steps to Maddie’s room.  Her night-light illuminated her room and the glow-in the dark stars shown down from the ceiling.  I walked over to find my little girl in her Sabres pajama’s, sucking her thumb and sleeping peacefully.

This had become my routine when I would return home from the rink.  I’d say hi to whomever was babysitting her that night, which would usually be my mom, dad, Charlie, Stacy or Wagner, then I’d go up and say goodnight to Maddie.

We all had our good days and bad days, but life was moving along and I had “made things work out,” just like Emmy said they would.  Of course this wasn’t what life was supposed to be like, but I now learned that nothing is what we ever expect it to be.

Once I got back down stairs, I found mom out in the kitchen and my hot chocolate mug sitting on the counter waiting for me.  Mom sat the old familiar shoe box down in front of me as I took a sip of the warm liquid.  The hot chocolate was perfect for a cold winter night like this.  Plus, with everything that had happened over the last several months, I needed something as simple as the warm cocoa to remind me of how Emma always warmed my soul.

“Hot Chocolate is the best way to soothe the soul,” Emma would always say.

“I thought you might want to have this…I know you might not be ready to look at everything inside, but I think it’s important for you to keep for Maddie,” she said solemnly as she sat down across from me, picking up her own mug to her lips.

It was the shoe box that stored all the news articles that Emma or I had been in over the years.  It contained flowers from her prom bouquet and my boutonnière, a couple mix tapes and CD’s that contained our favorite songs from summers past, photographs of us from holidays, family vacations, prom and hockey games.  I even remembered that I had placed our plane tickets and ring boxes in it after we returned from Europe.

I looked up at mom and whispered, “Thank you.”  I took a deep breath before lifting the lid of the box.  As I opened the box the flood of memories came at me like a spring flood, washing away the hurt and promising new life.

The Obituary in the July 6^th, 2010 Buffalo News…

Emma S. Kaleta, 25, Firefighter

Emma S. (Kasyk) Kaleta, 25, wife of Patrick Kaleta (Buffalo Sabres) of

Lake Shore Rd.

was tragically killed at a warehouse fire on

Ohio St.

on July 4^th.  Emma was the first female ranking firefighter in the Buffalo City Fire Dept, a 4 year veteran of the department and was the 3^rd generation of her family to be employed by the city.  She was killed in the line of duty, attempting to save a building worker during the time of the fire.  Her act of selflessness will always be recognized, making her a true hometown hero for the city of Buffalo.  She is survived by her husband, Patrick Kaleta (24) and daughter Madeline Rose (6 months).