It was as simple sometimes as a whispered voice in my ear as we both lay exhausted in bed, too weary to even open our eyes. I wish now I'd never closed them so I had even more memories of you to draw from.

Sometimes it was a holler down the hall, when I had to be up at the crack of dawn while you were still reading bedtime stories to the kids. I'd yell it back and fall asleep with a smile on my face. And yet now, even these many years later, I regret so much that I didn't just stop sleeping altogether so I could have spent all those seconds with you that are forever gone.

Sometimes it was over the phone, held to my ear by my shoulder as I struggled to finish some important test or calculation or notes for Launch Control. I could hear in your voice how tired you were; having so many little ones to handle completely on your own really took it out of you. Now all I can do is wish I'd told NASA to screw off and come home on time to be with you.

But you see, the problem is, Lucy...I didn't know.

I didn't know the last time you were baking that I would never taste your cakes and cookies again.

I didn't know the last time you made us a Thanksgiving feast that it would be the last time I ever woke to smell those aromas at eight o'clock Thanksgiving morning.

I didn't know the last time you sat on the couch in your bathrobe with your swollen belly forcing you to lean back rather than forward, grinning from ear-to-ear as the boys opened all the presents Santa had brought them, that it would be my last Christmas morning with you.

I just didn't know. If I had known, you would still be alive. You wouldn't have been in that car. You wouldn't have been in that accident. You wouldn't have died.

I don't think you're proud of me, Lucy. I don't think you're proud of me at all. I think you're angry with me, and really, you have every right to be. I didn't do right by the children you carried and brought into this world. I abandoned them, Luce. I couldn't look at them. They used to remind me of the fun we'd had conceiving them, and of how much love we felt for each other and each of them as they were born. But after you died they reminded me of you in a different way. They reminded me of the fact that you were gone.

But it wasn't even that which really drove me away. It was those two words. The words you used to say to me every night, in whichever way was the way possible in that moment. Those two words I always said back.

The night of your funeral is when it happened. Mother was there to help with the boys, and when she got to Johnny's room to tuck him in, that's when I heard it.

"But Grandma, if Mommy's not coming home, who's going to say it to us every night?"

"Say what, honey?"

"What Mommy always said to us. And what she always said to Daddy."

"What was that, John? What did your mother always say?"

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

That's really the last thing I remember, Lucy, was hearing those words. That was when something in me snapped. Something that's never been put back together. I don't think it'll ever go back together. There's very little I remember until several months later when my mother gave me a tongue-lashing that I resented but realize now I deserved.

I was ignoring my sons. They'd lost their mother. They needed their father. But I just couldn't do it. You must hate me. You must think I'm not the man you knew, that I'm a terrible, awful man. Because the thing is that I still am not there for them. On some levels I am, but not in every way.

We never talk about you. We never look at pictures of you. Nobody ever says your name. Except me, but only in my mind. Every night when I go to bed, I whisper those words. I can't get past the last time I heard them from your lips. I can't get past the fact that I wasn't there when you needed me the most. I can't get past the fact that you're gone.

The boys are all grown, but I'm still the same as I was the second you died. I'm older, but nothing else for me has changed. Nothing. I've tried to move on. I've failed. I've tried to open my mouth and say something to the boys about you. My voice won't work. I'm stuck there, Lucy. I'm stuck in the moment of your death. And I just don't know if I can ever move past it. I don't really think I want to.

I know I've failed you. But as much as I have, I would like nothing more than for you to be here before me giving it to me with both barrels and then some. Because then you would be here. And we'd make up. And we'd make love. And as we'd fall asleep in each other's arms, you would whisper those words and I would say them back. And I would never let you go.

Goodnight...sweetheart.