We all have hopes for a new year when one rolls along, we were taught to express them, make resolutions, look to the future with excitement, wide eyed and wondrous like the possibilities are endless- it's sort of a return to childhood I guess, when the world really is your oyster and all things seem doable. Who came up with that? How are we supposed to carry on in such a manner when with age comes tragedies, loss, heartaches. How can we protect the ones we love from these inevitable crushing fates? The sad fact is we can't. I for one was under the impression that the universe was somewhat kind, that when one huge blow hits there is time and statistics on your side. That mystically you get a reprieve because you have suffered, paid your dues, and live worse for it everyday of your life. Well, at the moment it looks like there's no such thing as a break because of experience, the hits just keep coming and that childhood view sinks deeper and deeper under a jaded eye.
This month of supposed new beginnings just brings dread. Loss is a personal thing, there are no real words to describe it, you go through it next to people but utterly alone. Friends and even strangers surround you some with experience others still with a whole heart trying but failing to imagine themselves in your new shiny black shoes. You envy them, or at least I did, knowing what you have while living with it is a gift but when it's taken away it's torture. You hold on to memories, things you know he would do, things you know he would say, but that hole is too great to fill so you don't try. And each day there is a pain in your chest and a swelling ball in your throat but somehow you manage to tread on, bedtime it's own miracle each and every night. I don't know how this ends, I don't know if it ever will but I do know that I never wanted to share it so soon with someone so close. Unfair is the word of the decade, unimaginable is how this can happen twice only just one year apart to men who were so sound, so strong, so good and so doting to their daughters.
I am bitter, I try not to be, but I am. I am sad, so deeply sorrowful there are days I want to sleep away but I don't. I am angry, rage filled at times, always at nothing with no one to blame, but it passes. I am grateful, so very grateful for what I had and will always have with him. I am depressed, it comes in waves, and is heavy like lead but I struggle through it and somehow find a way to beat it down. I am hopeful, I would be nothing without it, he would want it no other way. I have glimpses, fleeting moments where the future can be seen and it is bright, shining even without him which most of the time seems like an impossibility, but it's there for me and I know with work I will get it and he will be proud.
I don't believe there is an end in sight for me and my personal struggle with my personal loss. I think it becomes a new reality, one I will learn to live with. My old normal is just a memory now. People say that it gets easier with time, I guess I want to believe that but I don't, at least not for me, at least not yet. I think no one will ever know the severity of my pain, MY relationship was too big, too emotional, too close to ever compare with anyone else's. Is this true? As I said loss is a personal thing, to each its own battle but with familiar wounds.
I had time to bargain with whatever higher power there may or may not be. I pleaded for his life, to take decades off of mine for a few more precious years. I would have honestly done anything, anything to save him. But we don't get to choose and that is what makes these January's seem cruel, resolutions pointless, wonder a joke. And there are days when I walk around cynical, dazed, pondering the point of this existence at all but then his warm memory will come to me and that will spark the wonder which leads to that little glimpse of hope and before I know it I am there creating that bright future in my mind. Sharing those beautiful childhood notions with a me of my own, teaching and giving as he gave to me, passing along the magical bits that make all of this loss and life worthwhile. Those glimpses that is what gets me through keeps me putting one foot in front of the other, longing for brighter days.
For you, I've told you I wish I could make it go away. Have it just be some epic bad dream that you wake up from feeling comforted by reality. If only I could I'd take pleasure watching you have years with yours, milestones, laughs and love. Instead we will press on together, sharing those with each other as we did before but somehow closer, bonded in these untimely tragedies, so similar, but so different just like us. It is unfair, and in all honesty there was some pain in seeing your relationship continue when mine had ended too soon, but more than pain there was love. Love for what I had and seeing familiar traits with you and yours. I never thought I would have to comfort a friend so soon after my own turmoil, but I am here and we will struggle together, through the bitterness, sorrow and all the other ugly trials until we can stand before each other with our happy futures now our presents glowing and intertwined.
That, my friend, I promise you with all my heart.
