Hands

Donathen my love,
Your hands. Your fingers, long and slender. Soft except for the callouses at the tips. How talented your hands were. Building, sound-proofing, re-finishing, waxing wood. Innovative. Talent beyond anyone that I know now on earth. Hands that played guitar, and piano. Hands that recorded and mixed and burned. Hands that caressed and massaged, and held mine. Hands that did not stop comforting me, even in your last bed. Stroking my hair. Rubbing my back. Comforting me was your last token of love. Your hands are so beautiful. I cannot forget them. How I miss them.

Sky

Donathen my love,
I am here where the sky expands like a great blue oasis. Where I sigh with the very beauty of it as I drive. Here- where the clouds are big marshmellows and the colors make me happy. It reminds me of summer, and you know how we both love that season. So many wonderful, hopeful mornings. So many lovely days. The beach whatever season will always have you in it. But especially here, where you wanted to make your career playing guitar , singing songs. Here where there is always promise in the sunshine. No matter what, as I look out to the sky, the horizon, the sea, I wonder if there will be a single day in my life when I am not thinking about you. There is no wrong or right answer. I just wonder.

Perfect

Donathen my love,
The last line that Nina utters in "The Black Swan" is "It was perfect". She is referring to the best and last performance of her life, but I believe that she is also speaking about the two sides of herself-the dark and the light. When she realizes that she is both, there is a moment of reconcilliation . Acceptance.  I have been reflecting.  When something is in progress; a relationship, a life, a love or a dance- it is not perfect. This is because it is in the process of  becoming. It is striving. It is changing , growing, regenerating or degenerating. It is not perfect. But when something ends and you are able to see the entirety of it- the life,  the growth, the struggle, the transformation (if such a thing happened and for you it did),  the finish-then you can see if it was perfect. Perfect in my head means it could not have been any better. Perfect is  that final touch, the cherry on the top of the creamiest of butter creme frosting. Nothing more needs to be added.  What we had became perfect. It was not always that way, but I can see that it is that way now. Are there regrets? Of course. But, what I cannot change myself, I will not fret about. What will be changed will be changed. The end is in the beginning, and the end was so graceful, so without ego, so absolutely gorgeous. It leaves me breathless and in awe to think of how you left.  A magnificent swan dive into the unknown. And it was perfect. And our love became as perfect as love can be, because at the end it was self-less. You thought only of me. I thought only of you. There is nothing more perfect than that.

So this is Christmas

Donathen my love,
It is Christmas. I am crying in my car because it hits me. I cannot
hold you, kiss you, wish you, "Merry Christmas".I can't shop for your gifts, or receive any from you. You gave gifts like Santa Claus. Whatever it was, it was clear that you took the time to find something unusual to delight me. You loved making me happy. You used to tell me that you lived for my smile. You are not living. I am not smiling.
All I Want For Christmas is You
I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true...
All I want for Christmas is
You...


( All I want for Christmas is you-Lyrics by Mariah Carey, and Walter Afanasieff

Smoke

Donathen my love,
You know that people want to blame your cancer on smoking.They hear the news,"Lung cancer" and ask, "Smoker?". They want to find the rhyme and reason for the cancer.  I feel as if I must defend you. I tell them that when you were homeless (he was?) and a drug addict ( I didn't know that) that you used to burn the casings off of copper wire. That you had lung failure back then. That yes, you did smoke but that there were many other reasons why you might have gotten cancer where you did. Not using a mask to re-finish, do flooring, sanding, sheet rock, being cavalier about fumes, laquer, pain thinner. You and I have seen that cancer comes even to those who have never even touched a cigarette.People want me to tell them that you smoked. They want to believe that if you had stopped smoking you would not have gotten lung cancer. I really do not have the answers for them.  They want the reasons why a man so young could be taken so fast. If that is their way of coping then so be it. But this world in which governments have allowed the poisoning of food, water, air, and ocean is a much more far reaching cause to the effect of cancer. Next time someone asks "Smoker?" I want to simply say- "Human Being".

Letters

Donathen my love,
I found some of your letters to me. I read them out loud and took them in. I recognize all of the love,
the struggle, the losing and winning.Your eloquence. Your amazingly beautiful handwriting. It's one day before christmas eve. We had come apart. But you were with me last Christmas eve, day. It was painful to be trying to re-inform our relationship. I was still on the fence. You know that. I just didn't trust that it would be different. I held on to the past like a shield of armor. I would like to imagine that we did have another chance doing that particular dance.

 There was always- as there will always be, our deep love and understanding of one another. Life sometimes pulls two people apart. That is what happened. The choices we make can devastate us. I think to myself if I could have stayed the course in my fight sooner. If you could have recognized your old enemy sooner . If. If. IF..... Maybe maybe maybe maybe.....No point in maybe. Or what if.  My wish is that we heal. That we are healed. That when we meet again, we know the points that will take us away from one another, and we both and together will be strong enough to fight those self-destructions. Those darker traits within everyone that make us take everything and everyone for granted. It happens. You turn around one day and nothing is the same. You are lying to yourself, and you are lying to the other. You are bored. Restless. Want a change and so you make it happen by doing something you know you shouldn't. Like picking up a drink or a joint. Like treating one another as if it is all going to last forever.  Like not being responsible, not caring. Shouting, avoiding, hiding.  It happens. We all have our little demons that wear us down with noise and their insistence to be paid attention to. The cure for that  is to acknowledge them briefly and then work those spiritual steps like crazy, cause you and i both know, that little devil is not going to stay little for long if something doesn't replace it.

 Our relationship was many faceted. Many layers and colors. You were everyone to me. This is why my loss of you is so vast. You were father, mother, friend, lover, child, soul mate, You and I had so much in common. How we enjoyed one another! I am grateful. So very grateful. So very heart broken. Oh! How much I miss you. I miss you unto the depths of my being. The loss is so great that I cannot even fathom it, and push it away. Naturally, it comes back. And I do look at it then, because I cannot escape the fact that you are not  here with me. You are not on earth now, no matter how much I want you to be. Your body died 42 days ago. Yet  you live. You live Inside your letters. Inside all of the memories that we cultivated over the many years. That is tangible, even if your body is not.
No matter how our hearts got intertwined it was all a magnificent journey. I cherish the whole thing. The Good, the Bad, and Everything in between.  Merry Christmas my darling.

Morning

Donathen my love,
How many mornings? Me grumpy, you jubiliant. Me cranky, you soothing. Me not wanting the morning. You enthralled at it. You would wake me because you had been up for hours.You would be lonely without me you said. I just wanted to continue sleeping.  How many coffees? How many massages to get the old body up and running? Countless. Countless, endless, and how I wish it were any one of those mornings. How I wish that I could greet you now this morning with as much love and joy and thankfulness as you showed me in all those mornings when I didn't want to face the day. How I miss you and how I miss the struggle of morning with you to help me face the day.

Fight

Donathen my love,
I wish i were not angry but I am. I wish chat rooms and craigslist
and all of the wasting of time didn't happen but it does and it did. And I know I am blaming you, but I am not blameless in this regard at all. You did everything in your power to help me with my weaknesses. And if it isn't a substance that we are using to escape ourselves, or shopping, or work, or gambling everything we have on one roll, it is other people, or a fantasy of who we wish we were , of who we might be, but who we are not. I find myself addicted to feeling crappy after going through some of your correspondences and I  fight going through all of the things in my mind that i cannot change about what we did, or didn't do when we were together. About the things that might have been. Fight the little, petty emotions that may have been valid then, way back then, when we were struggling, when we were both sinking.  I must stand strong in my knowledge of reality and not torture myself about the parts of your life that I do not understand. I have to take what we had and know in my heart of hearts that you were working on yourself, and I was working on myself, and despite my feelings of the past - the way back then past that has come and reared it's ugly head and has tried to take our love down a couple hundred notches, that nothing and no one is real in cyber space. And you and I were not out there , we were here. Day in and day out, eating, and talking and laughing and fighting and loving, and fucking and struggling and enjoying and crying and living and it may not have all been beautiful but it was real. God Bless you my adorable, articulate, lonely, passionate, magnificent man.

Layers

I don't want to forget anything. I search my memory for all of the details. I write them down. I re-create the timber of your voice, the softness of your skin, the callouses of your fingers. But they are getting faded. Not so vivid. This upsets me. It's only been 5 weeks and 4 days. It is like yesterday and an eternity ago.  I cannot quite  hear your laugh. But I can see you laugh. I can see your joy. 
Also I can see your rage. Intense. Understandable.
No one can see the reality of their lives while they are alive, so it seems. Your life. A hole in your heart at birth. Music. Struggle, Rebellion. Travel. Learning, Testing, Anger, Love, Responsibility, Striving. These are real experiences. These no one can take from you.
In your last days your energy was limited. So all pretense fell off of you. And there you were. Clear purpose. No bullshit. Beautiful.
Next time which I think is soon, remember to allow the man you are to be revealed to you sooner. You don't have to push so hard against the machine. The machine of life will not change. You taught me that life is not what we think. Life is a whirlwind of busyness  that takes us and turns us all inside out and upside down. In the end, nothing is as important as love. All of us, we are not what we think. We are all bigger, more filled with grace, an essential creation. But life puts all the layers on. Dying takes the layers off. You were simply, you. You were not your idea of you.  I want to be with that man again. He is a wonder to behold.

Essential

Donathen my love,

I feel you leaving. I sense you are at the point of not looking back.There is no need to look anymore. You have seen it all, I believe. From my understanding,  within the life after death, the 40 days of wandering, facing oneself ( or not) as is explained in the Tibetan Book of the dead, you are almost ready to jump into another go around. My prayers are-
Dear God, Spirit, Deities, Conquerers, Saints,Angels, Jesus, Mary and all who are protectors and guardians; help my love to choose a life in which he can grow to be the mighty warrior that he is in potentchia. Help him to face life on life's terms right away and not waste time trying to change the world which does not change. The only change comes from within. Help Donathen to find a sacred teacher, to start his living sooner, and to remember his past lives, so that he does not have to suffer as long.

That's what I pray.
Donathen my love, No one can stand in your way but you. You be you. You have said this to me many times, now it's your turn. So go Be.

Dance

Donathen my love,
Tonight I will sing a leonard cohen song dedicated to you.
"Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin. Dance me through the panic, till I'm gathered safely in. Lift me like an olive branch, be my homeward dove, dance me-to the end of love....Dance me to the end of love....

Rubies

Donathen my love,
I remember you bought me rubies, my birthstone. You did not stop until you had bought me earrings,a ring, a necklace. Each holiday, yet another beautiful red stone.  You gave them to me because no man had.  You gave me rubies and oh, so much more...There is a proverb. Your love is finer than rubies. Yes, Like that.

Avalanche

Donathen my love,
I am in an avalanche of grief. The could haves , the would haves, the should haves....I keep wanting. I know it is pointless. Useless. Still. I know that mainly we did our very best.And what we had no avalanche can destroy. Our earth time together ran out. I am standing at the edge of this road, and I am looking into the distance, and all I see are miles and miles of emptiness. It's an avalanche of grief.It's a road that stretches on and on without you. It is the gasp in in my chest. It's the sob that wails out and is raw- child-like. The sobs come in avalanches. I cannot see. The tears are rivers.  Then it all-just  stops. It is shocking how fast you went. It just doesn't even seem possible. Only a month or so ago....we were here on earth together and now, we are not. You are somewhere and I am still here. The reality of this has me sobbing in avalanches  and there is no lasting comfort. My loneliness without you is an avalanche and the hole in my soul cannot be bargained with.

Things

Donathen my love,
Your things are scattered around the house. Part of me was very organized. The other part let your folded laundry stay where it is. Some of your shirts and jeans are in the drawers.Boxers and Kerchiefs too. Other clothing and items are stashed in suitcases. But I keep opening them to sort and make decisions about who should receive them.
Every little thing that I have given away, I have had to make an effort to part with. I do not need your things to know you are with me. Still, I feel greedy in my need to have them around. I am still sleeping with your red jacket. I am still wearing your rings. I am still trying to smell you on bandanas and shirts. It is very odd to be trying to find you within your things. But there is no place else that I can find who you were in the flesh. Yes, you are in my heart but it isn't the same thing. My body misses your body.

Godfather of Soul

Donathen my love,
It is bitterly cold out. The kind of cold where the only thought is to keep and to stay warm. I am up at the time of day that you would be, just shy of 5am. I slept 3, maybe 4 hours. A restless, sleepless sleep without dreams. It had been an enjoyable night though. We all went to hear Greg's 3 man band play in a little music venue on Ave. C. They lit the place on fire. And at the end of their set, the house music that came up was James Brown. That was the deciding factor that you had been there. I thought so.
Love you baby.
It was great to hear live music again.

Brave or stupid?

Donathen my love,
I am posting these personal feelings on the web. I hesitated because these thoughts are so very private. But there are not a lot of posts about grief that I could find that was specific to losing a past love, a present love, and a very best friend and supporter. I cannot explain our relationship. You know how it was at the hospital. I was, "the wife", "the proxy", "the girlfriend". You were "the ex", "the husband" "the boyfriend".  It was impossible to get the right word because we were so many things to one another.  Sometimes words do not explain, no matter how hard you try. I hope you are not upset with me about posting this blog so that anyone can see it. I may put it back to private again, I am unsure. So, for now I am brave and maybe stupid. I can live with that.

Late night again

Donathen my love,
I cannot sleep. I play your songs. I close my eyes and listen to you playing your guitar and relish the timbre of your voice, and I soak in your words because they are for me. I let everything else go And the feelings come in a tumble. I toss. I turn. I speak to you out loud. I tell you that I love you. That I miss you. There is something that holds me back from conjuring you, as if I could. I know you are on a journey now, and there is no getting back here, now. I do believe we will be together again. I do believe that with my whole heart. I want it to last longer next time. I want. you. by. my. side. Two peas in a pod. Remember? You are the one on the left. What am I going to do without you? I don't want to forget an inch of you. I don't want to move on. But, I cannot stay here. So, like you, I must move. I must go forward. You must go forward too.
You are my Ricky. I am your Lucy. It is what it is. And that is all there is. Sometimes, I don't know what it is I am feeling. I see you lying there, dead. I see your sweet face, relaxed. I see nothing of you there, except a shell. This is how I can pull the sheet over you after I have closed your eyes. Some people are shocked that they left your eyes open. Why?  I was grateful to be the one to close your eyes, your eyes which held such a burning fire in them just a few hours before, but in death were cloudy and blue. Vacant. The light had gone out of them, so I closed them. Then, I pulled the sheet over you,and covered your whole body, so that no one could see you. I covered the body which once held you inside. And then, I walked away. You were not there. You, everything that is you, had left. I believe in other dimensions. I know you are here, except not in this dimension. This is what is sad, and frustrating. But, time does have a way of weaving itself around again, and I know that although time is now crawling by, in an instant my life will be over too. And it actually is not so long before we are together again, because just yesterday, we were making plans, and living, and laughing, and arguing, and doing all the things that people do in a day,  and now it is just me. And I am writing this blog about my loss of you, and I will turn around, and I too will be somewhere other than here. Oh! I love you. I miss you. Now I must try to go back to bed. The bed where I sleep with your jacket. The bed, where I finally after 30 days of your absence, I changed the pillow cases. Progress.

Forever

Donathen my love- There is a large bottomless well within me. It feels as if nothing will ever fill it. I don't bother to try. It is too large, too deep. Endless. This well cannot be filled. It just is. I fear that I will simply have to endure this gap, this void,forever and minutes are hours, hours become days and still the well inside plummets downward. It is as big around as my heart and its' depth is unfathomable. It is colorless.  You can see to the bottom of the universe inside there. I don't like looking because no one and no thing, and no hug and no kiss, no word, no touch, no present, no card, no nothing makes it go away. It exits  inside of me. Going forever. You are somewhere  at the bottom of this well. I hesitate. I cannot go to the bottom of the well right now. I want to , but I can't. The well inside is a sorrow well. It is too deep. It is too vast. It is too dark. I tip-toe around it. It pitifully cries out. It groans. It needs something. I just don't know what. But I do know who.

Ache

Donathen my love
I ache that I cannot touch you. I cannot feel your warm breath on the back of my neck. I cannot turn away from that breath ; The breath that tickled me. The breath that was here, just a moment ago.
I will not dwell on what might have been. I will be grateful for all of our love and struggle. The love and struggle that brought us back together in the end.
Last night, I listened to the songs you wrote me. I closed my eyes, and held your voice up to my ear and saw you singing. I was joyful. The ache is still here in the morning, but for a moment right before I slept, I was with you in my arms. All of the love you had for me, pouring out. Pouring into my heart.Your words, the timbre of your voice,your melody, all filling me.  And the ache went away right before I slept.

Glimpse of you

Donathen my love,

I have been trying to re-create you. Scraps of paper. Fragments of your songs. A sweater. Your broken bracelet. I pull all of the memories out and look at them. I re-create the seconds, the minutes we spent together. The good. The not so good. I am trying to conjure you for a moment more.

I gather all of your things together but you do not appear. I look for you everywhere but I cannot find you. Sometimes I think that maybe I catch a glimpse. My skin burns intermittingly and I wonder, if it's you trying to reach out from another place in time. But it's not good enough even if that is the truth. I want to feel your warm, milk scented skin. I want to have your soft lips and deep eyes penetrate this void. I want. But there is only the ache.

I grasp your empty red jacket. I put it in the bed with me. I keep trying to find you. But you are not there.

Memories

Donathen, my love
Your memorial was yesterday. 20 people came. They came to honor and remember you. 
I miss you so much. I don't want to think about the many tomorrows without you. So, I try not to. I try to stay in the day. But My life is missing a chorus. The kind that makes you love feeling alive, and joyful. And that kind of  chorus is you.
Stay positive so you attract only good things. I will do my best to do the same.
your pomegranate forever.....

Another night

Donathen, my love

I found an email the other night that you wrote to me. It was from two years ago. Almost to the day. It was you first saying that I was ignoring you, and that was probably just life on life's terms.

And it broke me to read it then, and to read it now. What pain you were in! I wrote you back that I loved you probably more than I cared to admit, but that you were always with me. That you lived in my heart. That you weren't going anywhere as far as I was concerned. I wrote to you, that it hurt me terribly that you were in pain, and that you did not need to worry. I guess I assuaged your fears because You replied that you would never dream of asking me to dance (the dance of rekindling our relationship)-until you could give me the dance of my life.

You did just that.

And I love you.

And my dance card is still open for you to come and fill it.

See you in every star. In every pomegranate. See you until I see you.

Bad

Donathen, my love...Our relationship was so multi-faceted. So many things to each other.
I know you had other relationships, and for a while there, I just didn't care. I didn't care because you were going through something and I was going through something. We had to do the seperate path thing, I know you understood. It was painful for both of us but we both began to really be more of who we were individually. I looked through emails of yours, and I got a bit jealous. Then, I felt sorry. But I was jealous of what I imagined.There is no reality to my feelings. It is all in my head.
In reality, the man that I was with for the last 5 months, was a different man. A man of substance, and growth, of love, and light. You were luminescent. I don't want to be jealous, and re-hash old feelings that have nothing to do with reality.
It is me who is still seeking and searching to heal all the wounds of my past. These gripping fears have nothing to do with you. You brought them out once. And that was a long, long time ago.
That is not what we ended with. So, I let go of all unecessary pain. I let go of all unnecessary pain because there is real pain now and it has nothing to do with anything negative. It is the pain in myself that was once you. It is the pain that is dull and in the background now, but ever present.
It is an empty space. The empty space had you in it. Now there is loss and the memory of you.
Several people have said that you came to them. That they saw you. I want to see you. I think. No, maybe not. I have felt you. I have felt your being next to me. I want you to let go....Let go.

No words...

Donathen, my love.... Oh. I take a breath and realize that you are on one side of the bridge. I am on the other. Sometimes I feel we almost meet in the middle but not really. Not in this reality. Mabye somewhere. You live in my heart. But my heart is empty without you. My heart doesn't know what to do with itself.

I miss you terribly. It is only going to get worse first before it gets any better. Forgive me for saying so but I want and need for it to get better. I am impatient not to feel the raw tugging of sorrow and the anguish that your loss brings me. Some moments I forget. I am relieved then. All is well in my world. Then, I remember. You are gone and nothing I can do will ever bring you back to me now. Maybe in the future, but not now. I try not to think too much about it.

I want you to be on your journey, and remember all the things that you need to remember.

My wish for you is endless. It always will be.

Goodnight my love. See you on the other side of the darkness. For real.

I cant sleep

Wired.Tired.Keep moving. Maybe I will wake up and you will come sailing through

the door. Cant sleep. Took things to help but I am walking around amidst your things, with

nowhere to go. I search notebooks for any scrap of you. I am putting together something, I don't really know what. It is 3:40 am , almost exactly one week since you left the earth. I hope you are discovering new lands. We are all still down here, and it is so very lonely without you.

Oh, Donathen. What just happened?

My love, my light, my anchor, my Rock. You have made me strong and I will get through this.. I miss all of you. Now there are bits and pieces. I am trying so hard to recreate you, but I know that that's just a dream, I keep trying to pretend is real.

At the very least darling, I got through today without the relentless sobbing that I have poured out to the Universe. That is a blessing.

5 days

Donathen my love,

It's 5 days since you left. 5 days since my heart broke. 5 days. I am numb today. The pain rests

right above the surface, it's a cry and a wailing that is deep within. It will not leave me.

I don't want to cry anymore. I hurt all over. I am hungry but I don't eat. I am sleepy but I don't lay down. I walk from room to room, not knowing where to go. The last 4 days seem to have gone by in a blur. I talked too much. I went through your phone to call people to tell them-you would not be there to pick up messages.I found 2 funny videos of you on there. One when you first got diagnosed. You said into the camera- "It ain't worth it, if you're uptight." You made me smile.

Then, the second video was of me filming you overseas. I play that before I go to bed at night.

I sleep with your jacket and sweatshirt. I wear your jewelry. I smell your clothes to catch you somewhere in them. I found a lock of your hair and I smell that and press it to my face.

Donathen my love,

You are my soul. You are my heart. No matter where you are, that doesnt' change. It will never change.

I love you.

"G"