Moving

Donathen my love,
Why do I feel as though you left the earth a million moments ago? Why does it feel as though you are fading, almost phantom like -away? I am moving from the apartment. Will you come with me? Will the traces of you come to the new dwelling? I don't know. Again, it strikes me as strange that people tell me they speak to you. Why do they do that? Can't they understand that you have important things to do right now? Or maybe it is me just jealous. I don't have the need to speak to you darling. I feel you in my heart and I know that wherever you are-because I do believe you ARE , somewhere, you know what I am doing. Somewhere in time and space we are connected and it feels silly to say things out loud. Maybe it is because I must move. I must move slowly away from all of the loss. This may be the reason that I cannot quite hear your voice, the timbre of it so easily anymore. Is something wrong with me? I think it is the merciful process that comes with coming out of the other side of grief. The loved one must fade into the background for sanity to exist. So, my sweet man-I am moving. The girl who flies by the seat of her pants and comes out landing on her two feet, is moving from one place to another. But I know that I have you. I know "I got you", right between my beating heart and the memory of what we have. I know that somewhere out there, you know I am yours. No words necessary.

Pushing you away

Donathen my love,
I realize that I am keeping you at arms length. People say they see you, hear from you. I don't believe it, not really. If it's true it doesn't bring me any peace. If it brings them peace, I am truly happy for them. I want you. Not a sign, not a wisp of you, or a glance. I want you in the flesh. You to hold and talk to. If I cannot have that I want nothing. I look at your picture and touch your features, and then I put the picture away in a drawer and I do not think about it. I cannot listen to your music right now. It is a tease. Your voice on the answering machine is a tease. I cannot fan that fire anymore. I miss you so terribly and I am angry that I do not have you near me in the flesh. You will always be near me, I know that. We are destined to meet again. But in this life, the only life I have right now you have left a hole as big as the universe. No one and no thing is filling it. So, I am pushing you away. Putting your things in suitcases and boxes. Pushing you away, so that I do not have to experience every cell in my body and soul crying out , wailing and moaning, at the loss of you.
Anger is so much easier for me to function in and I know you appreciate that. My functioning is one of your wishes for me, and I am so very grateful of what you gave me. You must know that I would not be here had it not been for you and one other and you know who I mean. She is a pillar of strength, and never gave up on me-just like you.
My two pillars. My pillars of strength and love. Now my house is one sided, and it probably must come down at some point, because pillars do crumble and have to be re-built. Still, some part of me always rests underneath the missing pillar that you built for me, to shelter me from harm, to infuse me with hope. These things are still there because of you. I love you Donathen. I love you more than I have loved anyone in my life. I cannot believe that I couldn't save you. That nothing worked. That God had made a decision way before this, and there was no way anyone could change his mind about it. I am angry at God because he took you from me.
God will understand why I feel this way. God will forgive me. So, I push you away my love, my best friend, in order to live yet another day without you in it.

Smoke

Donathen my love,
I am smoking your cigarettes, despite not liking menthol. I am wearing your bracelet. I am using your creams and lotions and foot scrubs. I am putting on medicated lip balm that you kept in your jacket pocket. I feel closer to you doing these things. I know you have touched them, I know your lips and your skin and your hands and your lungs, and your elbows, and your feet have been touched by these objects. I am meeting women, women like me who are not old. Who look at the long road ahead without their love, like me. Slowly we are finding one another. We are people who have to consider that life will go on and on and on. The older widows, they have different problems. They have life is at an end problems. I am told this is why I cannot be in a group with them, and so I am waiting for a group that will let me in. A group of people who look at the rest of their lives as though it stretches forever, but all of us- no matter our age, or our gender-have that one thing in common. Loss. The emptiness that is living without the other. Forever until we die is how it seems.  I know that old or young, rich or poor, we are a brotherhood. A sisterhood of longing and aching and weeping and wringing of hands. We are the same in that we mourn specifically. We mourn the absence of a lover, a boyfriend, or girlfriend, a wife, or husband, a help mate, or soul mate. It is different than losing a Father. Or Mother. It is different than losing a childhood friend, or co-worker. So very different. Every day a challenge without the one who shared in everything, like a twin joined at the hip who is suddenly amputated. No matter the miles, or time spent away from one another, always a connection. Never not a connection. Then death comes like a surgeon. And your other half has been ripped from you. Every day a long 24 hour period where hope and meaning are challenged with every minute that ticks by.
I use your things my love, so that I am closer to you. I put my fingers where your fingers were. I scoop out the lip balm, knowing that you touched it and now I am touching you. I put the goop on my lips, remembering as I do it -how you did it. And I smile. Yes, sweetheart it makes me smile. All of your little idiosyncrisies make me smile as I remember them. And for a moment, we are together. And then it is gone. But still, that moment is a sweet one. And I look forward to these moments. Even if they fall a million miles away from the reality that once was you.

Numb

Donathen my love,
I wish I were numb, and I keep trying to be that way. I am back to shoving food in, and television, because I do not want to keep crying. I don't like the way it overtakes me, and makes me feel lost. I don't like the way it wipes out all hope and all sunshine in me. This crying is a quieter version of the deep wailing. It is stealthy- where streams of tears just pour from my eyes and will not stop. No sound comes out. Just tears in a never ending stream. And the ache. The constant ache. Nothing helps. I cannot take a big drink of my favorite liquor, those days are long gone. But I want that numbness. That feeling of no worries. No response. Nothing. I want to scrape my insides out and be a shell. I just don't want to feel. I don't want to think. I don't want to miss you. I don't want to be anything except numb. But nothing works. Nothing. All I want is sleep where maybe my dream might pull me out this nightmare of losing you. Crawl into a little ball and just sink into the mattress. Sink away from the world. Away from the world without you in it No one is you. No one is who you are. I want you. But you don't exist here anymore. You only exist inside me and that is not good enough.

Ways of Dying

Donathen my love,
You must know that Bill died right after you did. And I spoke to K about it and she told me all of the details which were terrible. I am so glad for your sake that you did not suffer as Bill did. I am so happy and grateful that your suffering was not long and arduous, not darkened by the disease of addiction. I feel terrible for Bill, and all addicts who die at the hands of a disease that can not be contained. Dying of alcoholism is absolutely one of the slowest, most terrible ways to die. And a cirrhotic liver is an agonizing way to go. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. I am sad for K. and J. as I know you must be. And obviously for Bill who didn't get it. So, I do take comfort in knowing that for you,death was somewhat fast, and somewhat like breathing in and out, and then not. This does give me comfort. This does ease my soul. When I saw your body, you were not there. It was so obvious. Just a shell. No longer encasing you. No longer animating that beautiful body. My beautiful, beautiful man. No you were no longer in the building. That was clear. I love you my darling. I love you beyond measure.

Future Time

Donathen my love,
I find myself thinking of the future. The future in this life. The future in the next life. Sometimes, it makes me feel better to know that I don't have long on this earth, relatively speaking. I think of when we can be in one an other's arms again. And the relief I will feel being held by you. I try not to think of all the time that I might have on earth without you. Living to 60,70 or 80 . I can't think about it. I don't. I think of what it will be like to see you and feel you and be with you again. What the next life might bring. It could be a pipe dream. No one is sure what exists afterwards, but I gain comfort thinking of a future time when we are as we used to be, only better.
I believe the Creator is a merciful one. So, I rest in that belief, and let things wash over me, and I try not to worry- where or how or if. It seems like your death was so long ago, and then, it seems like a week or two at most. But in fact it was a little more than 2 and a half months, and it feels like forever ago. And it is winter and I hate winter and I hate it even more now. But spring will come. Spring will definitely come, as it always has.