One Year Later
How do I sum up one year without you, when mere days after losing you I realized I never had you? That the words shared between us were nothing more than empty promises—your attempt to placate me. The why of which I will never understand.
It was one year ago today that I received the call. I’d gone to bed with my phone on full volume, and woke up in panic when I saw the voicemail. I don’t know why—your death was inevitable. I’d known it from the moment I spoke with the surgeon a week earlier. Yet in the still dark hours of the morning, I felt as if I failed you. As if I should have been by your side in those final moments, despite knowing you’d been dead for at least a day. I’d been there when your brain herniated. I watched the last moments of life erode through the cracks of your skull—matter dripping onto your shoulders, the day nurse rushing in to cover the mess in gauze, though I knew there was no fix to the problem at hand. Death is finite. The declaration of your life ending was nothing more than a courtesy call to let me know that the tests conducted the morning before were conclusive.
I had one day to lavish in your memory. One day to sit around with loved ones and reminisce over the good times. Because the second day after your passing, I was forced to face the reality which surfaced with such shock that it rattled me—and everyone else who’d loved you—to reconsider the person that they were so willing to mourn. And as time carried on, the truth exposed itself further and I was left to grapple with the fact that everything I thought I knew about love and life was a lie.
And now I sit in real time, in a year you’ll never know. There are things that feel wrong to say—like my life is better with you dead. My head has been a quiet place since the morning I received the first call from the ICU. I avoid saying these things. Not because I am in denial, rather I do not wish to face the scrutiny I feel certain will come my way. I do not wish to rationalize the validity to those who have expressed little interest in me since you. I should not have to recount the years of emotional turmoil—and doing so provides no guarantee in someone understanding the complex grief that stems from such unexpected, yet measured series of events. The perpetual blindsiding and the careful curation of a seemingly shared life to keep me hopelessly devoted and tethered.
Love, or the idea of it can keep you blind. It will allow you to see only what you want. It will silence your qualms. It will rack you with guilt for allowing an ounce of doubt to live in your head. But the body knows best and tamping down my suspicions did not silence my mind. It did not slow my racing heart. It did not fill me with confidence that we were truly a team. I was so hungry for your love, I would happily consume whatever morsels were sent my way—never questioning why you were unable to give me more than crumbs. I was longing so much for the future you claimed to desire with me, that I gave without asking for anything in return in hopes of reaching the elusive place you’d promised sooner. I could not admit it to myself, but in my heart I knew I was in it alone. That there were pieces of the puzzle that did not fit. I never fathomed the extent of the betrayal. The clear, cruel, calculated segmentation between our realities.
But if death provides anything, it is clarity, and your death showed me I am loved—just not by the person I gave myself to. There are still many missing pieces. Truthfully I haven’t gone searching for the answers. I am on the other side. I am grateful to be here.
