Happy Holidays -Donathen my love

Donathen my love,
It has been more than a year since you left the earth. November was a lonely, lonely month without you.
It has never been my favorite month and is usually very cold. Yet, New York this year has been unseasonably warm. Only a few days have been cold and it is unsettling me. Unsettling too is that you are not here.  I have never experienced such loss. No one can replace you. I feel lost a lot of the time. I cannot believe that time has gone by and I do not feel better. Words are not all that helpful and yet, I have no other way of expressing myself, no other way of reaching out. The world has gotten darker in all respects. You would have loved being involved with the protests. I am quite involved in my own way, and I believe you would be proud. I wish for you to Become the man you have always wanted to be. I wish for us all to Become the people we envision, and not just dream about it. Happy Holidays- Donathen, my love. I know you can see me, and hear me,and that you are where everyone originates from, and I love you with all of my heart. I wish everyone JOY and LIGHT. Happy Holidays.

Limitless

Donathen my love,
There are others who have lost the loves of their lives and I know how they feel.
I know that things will go on, despite death. And this at times is daunting. How can things keep going when you are not here? Why were you taken just when things were beginning to turn around for you? I do not know the answers. But are you gone forever? No. No you are not my love. I have kept your voice on the answering machine. I have saved videos of you and I, and watched them when I thought they would uplift rather than plummet me into an abyss of sorrow. I look at the photographs of you, of you and I smiling, together, arm in arm, and I kiss them. At times, I am still overcome with such grief! It is less shocking to me now. I wear your rings. I bring them to my lips and kiss them too. At times, I still sleep in your shirts. I wear your bandanas. I try to bring you back, even for an instant, and sometimes I can and sometimes,I do and then I run from the mountain of pain that begins to arise. I know that your body is gone. I still have some of your ashes in the closet, nestled in a blue velvet bag. I cannot seem to part with them. You are in my heart forever. No one and nothing can erase you. No one and nothing can ever replace you.I accept that. I honor your life and pray for you every day because I know that you exist. I cannot explain it, but I know. Words are so very limiting. You are limitless.

The Wreckage of the Past...The Beauty of the Moment

Donathen my love,
Tonight, I was shocked. And you know me, I really do not get shocked that often. When you have known people and have been a person with addictions, you get immune to certain events, or at least you try to be.
Well, there was that young girl who was the girlfriend of one of my neighbors, Mike. He was renting the apartment to the right. Remember? I think I told you. And one morning I woke up pretty early  a miracle on it's own) and I heard police radios, and movement right outside the front door. I opened it up to reveal that Mike's apartment had been secured as a possible crime scene.There was crime scene tape up, and detectives,and I found out later that the girl ended up asphyxiating on her own vomit. This guy, Mike-was in trouble to begin with. The two of them were always wasted, always fighting, and were always enmeshed in a whole bunch of drama. Well, she ends up dead and that was horrible and just so sad. She was 23 years old. I know it happens every day to someone's child, or someone's spouse, or someone's love. It's still heartbreaking.
I slipped a letter under his door letting him know that if he ever needed to speak to someone that I was here. I was honest about my own struggles with alcohol. I wrote that I had a good amount of time under my belt and that there is hope when you least expect it. It was a gesture. Simply to say, "I get it." It was all I could do.
Sometimes you just don't realize that for some people , there is not another million chances to get it. In fact, the last chance passed you by, but you didn't think about it. I know you know what I mean. Anyway, I didn't hear from him again. He moved out shortly thereafter. I would occasionally see him downtown but we never spoke. Tonight, I found out from another neighbor that he tried to cross a four lane highway in the beginning of the summer. He was 10 sheets to the wind. Blotto. He died when two cars ran him over. You and I both know that drinking is but a symptom, and the cars that ran him over were just the last straw on the camel's back. For a true alcoholic, alcohol takes no prisoners.  When I learned about Mikes' fate, I gasped. How awful and tragic and commonplace.

You and I both stepped out from the wreckage of our past and we were able to relish in the beauty of the moment. Many moments in fact. How lucky were we? I'll tell you.

Very.

Praying and the Dishes

Donathen my love,
The other day I was singing as I did the dishes. It started out with the tunes that I know and like. "Aquarius", "Man I love" "Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart". Oldies but goodies. And the next thing I know I am trying to write a song-poem. And how it feels to be without you, even though i know in my heart of hearts that I will be with you again, and the words are not so important now, but the next thing I know in trying to explain this is that the hardest part of now is the not being with you in the flesh, simple as that. And tears are running down my face, and I realize that this is what it is like to pray. I miss ...
Your smell. Your embrace. Your laugh. Your warm skin. Your expression. Your dreads.
Your body. Your grace. Your smile. Everything that you were to me.
I can feel you. Even though i cannot touch you. And I can faintly hear you, although I know you cannot respond to me in the way that I want you to. With that amazingly unique voice. The timbre just so Donathen. No mistaking that voice anywhere.
And I have faith my darling that I will be with you again. I know that as sure as I know that I have all my fingers and toes. But the hard part -is time, and feeling all those minutes and hours that you simply cannot and will not be replaced. You are an original. No carbon copies were made when God made you my buster brown. My pea in a pod. My "D". There is no one on this earth right now that is you, or that ever will be you. This is why I cry. This is why I yearn to hold you in my arms. This is why my tears went up with the dish soap bubbles to God. And this is why I will always pray for you sweet man, no matter what part of the universe you reside in.

Miracle

Donathen my love,
I am a living miracle because of your love. There is so much impermanence.
What is permanent is the love we share even beyond the body, beyond time. Without this special love we have,  I know that I would not be here today. I would have had nothing to buoy me up from life's injustices in my every day existence then but I did have you.

Tireless, unwavering, always seeming to believe (even if you didn't) in my capabiltes, my strengths, my talents, and never showing me your fear. Perhaps if you had showed me your fear I would have gotten the message sooner, but perhaps not. You will always be mine. You are the man who will be forever in my heart and soul as my one true friend, love, and pal. No one replaces you. You are an original. A miracle too.

My love for you has not diminished; if anything, it is stronger. I reflect back. I reflect forward. I have you with me in any given present moment ,now. We are connected and will always be connected. Maybe we have been connected for many lives.  My pea in a pod-my soul mate- how I love you so! How I miss you!

I live on as a testament to your hard work and your faith. 5 years without a drink! Only God and you, can claim handiwork for that!

Birthday

Donathen my love,
I had a wonderful birthday and I know you were there as well. I saw beautiful sunrises and sunsets, I saw the stars spread across the black sky, like thousands of diamonds on velvet, and felt you watching. Or, at least I wished you were watching. I wished you were there with me. I did feel sad. I felt my love go out to you across the universe. I felt my deepest wishes wrap their arms around you and felt the shock of your absence. Still, I know you are proud. Look what you did my love! You got me to 50! No one would have believed it. But it was you. And God. Together you and HE gave me the gift of life. Thank you my dearest, my love, my soul mate. Thank you for never giving up on me. For having faith even when I did not. Thank you for my life my sweetheart. Without you, I would not be here. I wish  that next time around, you get to be with my friends and myself on my 50th. So, I am putting it out there. I keep the possibility open.
At the very least, I wish you 10 more years with me on earth and at the most---always with me on earth.
I wish our love always holds us together.

 

Ache

Donathen my love,
I am in the part of the world where we were almost a year ago....and I have to say, life is very hard without you. There is this ache. It is almost unbearable, so I push it and you away. Then, I purposely listen to your songs so I can hear YOU. Sometimes, I get through more than one full song. At other times, I just cannot take the pain of the ache. The me without you "ache." Dying seems like it might be OK because I know you will be waiting for me. I know this. I also know you are not planning to see me anytime soon, and that is ok too. It's just knowing that I will be with you "soon enough" that sometimes gets me through the day.
I think of where you might be.....I am so fucking angry at Sprint. They told me how and where and what I should do with all the paperwork, so I could change your account and just pay to keep your voicemail on....and then what do they do? They take away the ONLY reason I had been paying the bill in the first place. They took away YOUR VOICE. It hurts so much that people just don't fucking care that you wrote them a personal letter explaining who you are, and why you have paid the bill, and I just feel like ripping the heads off of everyone there, but I know it just doesn't matter, because you are never going to come back to me in this life. I have little videos of you. So, that will have to do. And now, I must tell Sprint to go fuck itself and stop paying the bill, but I have gotten disconnected from them 4 times as of last week trying to sort out things, so I am just a little bit disgusted. The fuckers.
NO, Donathen, my love....life on this planet only gets worse and less humane every day without you.
You aren't missing much.
I love love love love love love you. So much.
I ache.