Forward

When writing this collection of short stories, the image below stayed in my mind. This was the last time I saw Barbara Spitzer Robertson. I took this image in front of her then-new car.

 Through a remission, several rounds of chemo, hospitalizations, and the loss and regrowth of her hair, Barbara �" Barbie to me �" continued to push me to complete these stories I wrote starting in 1999 about the two of us, our adventures, and our friends.  The last four stories I would never post until after her death.

I met Barbie through an adult group on Yahoo while I was at the Pentagon.  Soon after, she invited me to her home in Axton, Virginia and we saw each other off and on while I was stationed there.  Her nickname came from the fact that on one of our dates, we shared favorite flowers: I love honeysuckle; she loved wild flowers like buttercups. Later, while driving by Buttercup Lane outside of Charlottesville we stopped and took photos �" one of our shared passions.  

I said to her after taking a photo of her under the road sign, “that’s our name for you…Buttercup Barbie!” 

The last time I saw Barbara was the day outside of Goshen, Virginia in 2005 where the photo was taken.  We had dinner, laughed and talked, and we kissed for the last time.  We never married and never lived together �" although in both of our hearts, we were “living the life” even if it was only in our heads. Barbara passed away in the fall of 2014.  

I was not there when she breathed her last breaths on this earth. She would have not wanted me there and I understood why: we will always be together, spooned up against each other on the couch, my hand touching her portacath while listening to the public radio station and talking about life. Our lives.

 

This collection of stories is dedicated to Barbara Spitzer - Buttercup Barbie, without whom these stories would have never come to mind… or to print.