Ashes to ashes

I'm writing from somewhere in the middle of Iowa. I'm driving across the country, back to our hometown, with Kira and my mom. I'm escaping to Ohio… said no one ever.

Unfortunately no matter where I run to, there is no escape from this reality. Wherever I am, wherever I go – I know that you are no longer physically here. Not two seconds go by without me thinking about your absence. Distraction from reality is even more painful then actuality, so I just let myself sit in the truth and bask in the torture of this loss.

Avoidance has never been a route I've turned to, so it's not instinctual for me to turn there now. Instead I've faced life full-on, sometimes too full-on. When we were falling in love, it was with fervor and enthusiasm. I did not hold back. I fell in love – completely, hopelessly, and absolutely – with your being and your soul. And now, in grief, I wear those same shoes. I wholeheartedly stand in the fire of this bottomless, raw despair, full-on.

Although, maybe there was slight avoidance when it came to picking up your ashes. It took me until yesterday to get them – the last possible day before heading home to Ohio. I sat with guilt as I put off going to the mortuary. Guilt and I know each other quite well. You used to tell me that guilt is anger turned inwards. I have a hard time getting angry at others but it's a cinch to put on myself. So on Monday, guilt and I drove to the mortuary to get your remains.

It was at that same mortuary where one month ago, I sat alone with your body for an hour before your memorial. I had to see you again. I couldn't let that horrible night in the emergency room be the last time I saw you – tubes in your mouth, failed EKG patches stuck all over your chest, and your body slumped lifelessly and gracelessly on a metal bed, my own unrecognizable screams echoing so loudly through the halls – that couldn't be the last time I saw you. So I asked your family if before your cremation, I could see you again. I needed to see you at peace. Thankfully, they obliged.

When I saw you that day in the mortuary last month, it wasn't you any more. Your spirit was gone. The soul I love so fucking much had escaped from the confines of your gorgeous, yet broken body. But, that morning, I chose to believe that your soul was nearby – maybe floating around that dull, cold room listening to me choke out my final words to your body. You were so cold when I touched you. Your skin didn't have the same spring that it did when you were alive. I touched all the hairs on your face, they seemed to have grown a bit and I wondered how that had happened, or if it was my imagination. I thought about how you'd probably want a clean shave. I felt your chest where they'd opened you up for your autopsy – the looming question mark that still remains – they had stapled you closed. They had you in a gown. I reached down to the hem near your thighs and pulled it up, just so I could see all of your manliness, one last time. I overheard your voice in my head telling me how inappropriate I was being. I didn't care. Though it's your spirit I love most, your physical body made you human. It made you capable of audible communication, tangible pleasure, and palpable interaction. It made you beautiful, in reality, not just essence.

So yesterday, I arrived at the mortuary to get what was left of you, "I'm here to pick up my fiance, David Welles." Those words actually came out of my mouth. He's now ashes. He's been divided into three urns. He was beautiful, but now he's only dust. How is this happening to me? How the fuck is this happening to me? The man working there (the man with the most depressing job in the universe) asked me if he should glue the lids down. Am I seriously having this conversation? I noticed the three lids teetering unstably on the top of the urns. "Wow, those are really full," I said. "Uh, yeah... there was... a lot of... him," he responded. I imagined him sweeping out the extra ashes that wouldn't fit in the urns. I wondered what they did with the rest of you. Had they swept you into a dustpan with some other people and thrown you in a garbage? Flushed you down the toilet like a dead goldfish? I closed my eyes tightly as if that would help my mind from wandering. I told him to glue two out of the three lids down. I needed mine open. I needed to see you.

When I got home, I took my urn into our bedroom. I sat it on the dresser below my painting that says 'Buy Less. Fuck More.' and next to the harmonium that you bought my for my birthday and I still haven't learned how to make a sound on. I stared at your urn and stroked the marble, noticing how beautiful the container was. I thought about how you would approve of it. And then I thought about what it was I was thinking about and fell on the floor in a ball of tears.

I opened my urn. They had you in a plastic bag. You hate plastic bags. I untied it and studied what was left of your body. You are grey. I had imagined that your ashes would be all the colors of the rainbow and peppered with glitter, a magical pixie dust. But you are grey – the color you hated. I noticed pieces of your bones. I wondered if the staples from your chest were in there somewhere. I wondered what parts of you I got in my third of you. I dipped my hand in your dust. I looked at it and rubbed my fingers together like some fucked-up mudra. I smelled my fingers. They smelled like nothing. I tasted my fingers. They tasted like nothing. I knew it wasn't really you in there. But that didn't stop the pain, it only intensified it.

So that was my day – wake up, attempt to eat breakfast but settle for coffee instead, cry through a therapy session, pick up my your ashes, oh yeah, then a quick oil change while I left you in the front seat, in a box, head home, taste your ashes, cry through yoga while my teacher told me to clear my mind and focus on my breath. Do you have any idea how heavy my mind is right now? He told us the breath was our greatest gift to the body. I thought about how deep your breath used to be, how alive, how rich each inhale and exhale was when you used to practice yoga next to me. I used to try to match your long breaths and joked with you that I might suffocate while doing it. I thought about your last breaths, how faint they were. Then I remembered I wasn't supposed to be thinking, just breathing. And I wondered if you were doing the opposite – not breathing, but still thinking. And I hoped it was the case. This is what my life has become.

So here I sit, at a roadside hotel in Iowa, on my way to our hometown for Thanksgiving. I will sit in your seat at your family's table and we will try to come up with things to be thankful for – and we will. I will eat pie. I'll visit friends and family who stare at me with pity and whisper behind my back, "Did you hear what happened to her?" I will drive by the school we both went to. I will sleep in the bed that I slept in as a child and that just months ago you held me in after my Grandmother died. I will try to hold joy in my heart for the blessings I have. But, I will definitely not escape.