It's been 62 days, 20 hours, and 36 minutes since I saw you take your last breath. Each day creeps slowly onto the next. I've settled into the knowledge that my only healer will be time. I've heard it, I've read it, but now I feel it, I know it. As of now, the wound remains open and raw. I think in some ways it's more open and raw now than it was 62 days ago. The adrenaline has left my system, the support is softer and less immediate, and the reality is vivid. Life without you is sinking in, it's desolate.
Tonight is the first time in 62 days that I've been at our house by myself. I've been alone for six hours now. I made a plan for myself. I would stay busy and 'not have to think about it' too much. But as I've learned, no matter what I'm occupying my body with, my mind is still longing for you. There's absolutely no distraction from grief. So in the past six hours, while I worked through my checklist of distractions, I still managed to cry in nearly every room of the house.
I thought that since I was alone in our home tonight maybe you would come to visit. You'd make a paranormal stopover just to check in with me, give me a kiss, and tell me you're watching over me. You'd wrap your angel wings around me. But, the house is quiet. There are so signs of angelic visitors. Kira and Beats are sad with me. They're curled up in little balls in their waiting spots. They've been waiting for Daddy to get home for 62 days now.
Our pets would occasionally follow me from room to room as I moved through the house this evening. I unpacked from the last six week's travel. I put my things away around all of your stuff that is everywhere. I did yoga and meditated. I thought of how much you would have loved to be practicing next to me and how proud you would be that I've been meditating. I took a shower and shaved my legs. I thought about how I would tell you, "Feel how smooth my legs are!" You would stroke my shin and say, "Oooh, yeah! Niiice!" I streamed the String Cheese Incident show. I now know over half the songs I hear, including their names, and sometimes who wrote them. You would be so proud. You would be so stoked to hang here with me tonight doing all these things we loved to do together. If you were here, then I wouldn't have had to cry through it all.
I cleaned my engagement ring tonight. I used a little brush to wipe its facets clean while it soaked in liquid. I watched the wear from the past couple months rinse off the diamonds like. When I took it out it was more sparkly than ever. I stared at it for a long time wishing I could wash myself of everything that easily, going back to my pure form, not carrying all of this weight. I admired the ring. It is perfect. It is just what I always dreamed of. We were supposed to be married. We were supposed to be happy. We were supposed to live long lives together. But instead, this perfect ring represents an broken promise. I thought about how badly I wish that you'd been able to propose to me before you died. How badly I wanted to tell you 'yes'. How I wanted to be able to call my best friend and tell her the news. I wish that the ring had been completed just one-week earlier, then maybe I'd have been able to hear those words. Maybe it would have changed something. When I called my best friend that morning 62 days ago she answered brightly, thinking I may have exciting news – then she heard my sobs. She couldn't even understand what I was saying, but she knew the news was not what she was expecting. The news was not good.
So today begins a new phase. A phase of being back home, without you. A phase of rebuilding. A phase I'm not ready for. I am not ready to rebuild or to leave the world with you that I wanted more than I ever wanted anything in this life. I'm not ready, but I have to go, because I have to contend with time – my healer.
Showing posts with label engagement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label engagement. Show all posts
The wind
I awoke this morning to the wind – restless and whirling. It whipped around the trees making them bounce unnaturally. It angrily ripped through the wind-chimes hanging on the deck that were given to us when we moved in together – their peaceful song now a tormented tango of tangles. I've been feeling you in nature – bears, foxes, rainbows, sunlight, butterflies, and the gentle wind. But why is nature angry today? We were never once angry with one another, not even a single time. We can't start now, my love.
I am going to Steamboat Springs today with my dad and three friends I went to prep school with. The four of us make up over ten percent of our 8th grade class. They are the old friends, the ones who come out of the woodwork to rally love and support. They all know you too, because you and I went to the same prep school, even though we didn't date until much later, and you were five-years older than I.
I think of you as a senior in high school, a very cool guy, even though you claimed you weren't. Me, a confused 8th grader, focusing on first-kisses and school dances and playing footsie with a cute boy at Assembly. You, soaking up art classes, playing bass, and singing lead vocals in a band called Endangered Feces at our school variety shows known as Coffeeshop. Me, overly concerned about my appearance. I was at a very high-tuition school but on an academic scholarship; all the kids in my class arrived, modeling the latest Abercrombie & Fitch khakis and flannels while I wore the J.C. Penny knockoffs. You, numbing your depression with a weed habit; sneaking out to the parking lot for a joint or a cigarette. You, looking for love in ways you weren't receiving it, unbeknownst to the fact that it was indeed embracing you always. You just wanted to fit in. Me, busted at Abercrombie & Fitch for shoplifting a pair of pants when I was supposed to be at ballet class. The noise of the security alarm still makes my heart skip a beat to this day. I just wanted to fit in.
You, always the jokester, heard that you could wear anything for your high school senior picture, so you decided that you'd shoot yours wearing nothing! Armed with a Tom-drum, you stood nude outside the school commons in front of the gazebo, your long hair pulled back into a ponytail making your ears look awkwardly large, eyes twinkling, you suspended the Tom in front of your privates. Mr. C, who's in-session class were witnesses to the photo shoot, cranked open his window and called out, "Ted, you're flattering yourself! All you need is a bongo!" You, unfazed (and knowing he was actually incorrect) grinned through your eyes as the camera clicked. A month later, the 8th grade me traded my photo for a copy of your photo. Maybe you didn't know, but they were being passed around the school like secret-underground Playboy magazines. I still have that photo, tattered in my wallet, it often falls out when I pull out my debit card or ID and I blush as I realize I'm holding the kiddie-porn version of the grown man I love, now a ghost.
You graduated, making your way to Oregon. And I continued at the school for another 4 years through high school: dancing, cheer-leading, high-jumping, sneaking into coat closets to make out with boys at school, sneaking out my window to go to a party, or sneaking boys into my window... always trying to be cooler than I thought I was and often acting pretty slutty. When I told you that, years later, you smiled and rolled your eyes, citing 'sexual liberation' as a better word. You admired me as a woman, even the teenage-version you never knew. Despite moving to Austin for college, I continued to generally date people from our school. Later, when we started dating, I told you that I always knew I was supposed to end up with someone from there, I just had to keep searching until I figured out who. It was you. I imagined the alumni newsletter arriving with news of our impending marriage:
"Ted Welles of '98 and Samantha Lipman of '02 are engaged to be married. They reside in Boulder, Colorado in a castle in the sky with their dog: Kira, cat: Beats, and roommate: Kevin. Their love is so off the charts that even our AP Statistics class can't chart it. When here at school, Mr. C favored Ted, but despised Sami; in fact, once he made her cry in front of the whole library. Sami always RSVPs them for alumni events, but they never show up because Ted doesn't actually want to go. Ted helped clean and organize the AV closet by the vendies: a true gentleman. Four-years later, Sami snuck in there to give a hand-job. They both were in Mrs. B's advisee and have dreams about the grammar they learned from her: Ted's are about being impeccably perfect and Sami's are about when she can break the rules. Maybe they'll get married in front of the Smead Building, in between the trees that smell like cum. We wish them a lifetime of love, happiness, Oxford commas, and financial contributions."
As the wind smacked the siding of our house this morning, it took me a long time to get out of bed. Every time I closed my eyes, trying to get a few more moments of rest, flashbacks from that terrible night would pop into my mind. I sighed and opened my eyes for the day. As the trauma of that night fades from immediacy, I think the PTSD is beginning to settle in. I heard a siren the other day and I felt my heart rise up through my throat to my crown. A bus pulled out into traffic, but not into my lane at all, and I swerved and cried out. I wonder if I'll be jumpy forever? I wonder if every time I feel love, I will also feel grief, like both sides of a hand: the back and the palm.
I opened the blinds and the sunlight wasn't there to greet me as it has been daily. The wind whirled and clouds moved in. Are you upset with me for leaving for the weekend?
I thought leaving the house would be good. It would give me a break from being completely engulfed in memories of you. Earlier this week I put away 3 baskets of your laundry. April stood chatting with me so I was less likely to stare at each t-shirt before hanging it, recall the last time I'd seen you in it and melt into the carpet sobbing, using each clean t-shirt to wipe my snot and dry my tears. I put each shirt back in your closet, color-coded, just how you like them. I felt a bit of guilt because I knew you would have ideally preferred me to tumble dry them all again for twenty-minutes; they were a bit crumpled after sitting in the baskets for a week and you would want them wrinkle-free. I put everything back in its place as if you were just gone on a trip or a tour or out walking the dog, about to pop back in, climb the stairs, kiss my forehead, and hop in the shower before sliding into a fresh shirt.
As I prepared to pack for the weekend trip, I pulled out my suitcase. It still had a luggage tag from our last trip. You always tore off the tags when unpacking, but I would leave them on: a reminder of the last time we went somewhere together. I studied it, trying to place where the tag was from. When was the last time I'd flown with that carry-on roller? My mind blank. My memory has been hazy these past couple weeks. I think the shock of the present is all my mind can wrap itself around, and my brain is saying "Don't worry about anything else right now, Sami. This is all you can handle for the time being."
I've avoided looking at pictures of us, watching the videos people are posting, or listening to the voicemails on my phone from you – even the one that's forty-seconds long and I've never listened to before. I feel so much pain without needing to see or hear the reminders. I'm living amongst the reminders. I changed the toilet paper roll yesterday thinking "he was the last one to change this roll". I touch everything gently: the shower handle, each piece of cutlery, the cat – maybe he was the last one to touch right here. I walk through the house in a daze, stopping to run my hand along the banister, remembering how just months ago you carefully wrapped it in streamers for my birthday party, redoing my half-assed attempt. I stop at the bookshelf; I read the titles and pull out books, leafing through them and gingerly touching earmarked pages. I have a huge stack of your books to read, dying to fill my mind with everything that was in your mind.
As I pack my clothes, I realize how painfully sad I am. I'm choosing outfits you won't see me in. "Why even bother," I ask myself. I'm leaving the house that's still full of you even though you aren't physically here. I tell myself it will be good to get away for a few days, noting to myself sensibly that I'm sitting in your tomb, suffocating in memories. But I love this tomb and each memory is beautiful and the thought of going away into the mountains and creating memories without you is fucking heartbreaking. My mind retorts. My heart cracks more, like a car's broken windshield in the dry mountain air or the Liberty Bell. How can it keep breaking more? I moved to the mountains to be with you. I would have chosen the sea if it were up to me alone, but I chose you and the mountains and I fell in love with their grounding and their strength and mostly I fell in love with YOU. And I need YOU. And I don't want to leave you, like you left me.
Last night I went out with the girls. Angie, Elizabeth, Signe, and I got our nails done and grabbed a bite of food. Ted, do you know that I have had a manicure every day for the past year in case you ever proposed to me? So that my hands would be a canvas for the beautiful, sparkling symbol of our love and our oath to be together forever? Do you know that when your family gathered around me and proposed to me on your behalf, my manicure was torn off, exposing layers of brittle nails and ripped cuticles? Not that it matters at all anymore, but it used to. I used to painstakingly choose a color every two weeks, over-analyzing, "Should this be the color I'm wearing when it happens?" My nail lady would smile through the language barrier, she got it. So last night, I chose a color. I chose it nearly as quickly as I chose the dress I wore to your funeral. Because those things don't matter anymore. Maybe they never should have mattered, but now they truly don't. Is that a lesson this is supposed to teach me? Did this happen so that I would be forced to see what's actually important? Love, not nails? Love, not fashion? Love, not marriage? Couldn't you have taught me this a different way, God?
All snuggled into a booth at a Mexican restaurant, the tears began. I'd been doing pretty well until that point. I told the girls how I was feeling scared about two things in particular, right now:
One. I'm scared of being alone. I have had boyfriends since I was 18-years-old. I've never been single for more than two months. I am now 30. That's twelve years of partnerships.
When relationships have ended in the past, it's because one or both partners decide it's time: everything has been gained from the relationship that can be. You glean from it and you learn what is right and what is not right for each individual. You probably leave some of your love with that person, a special place for their memory, but mainly, you take your love back. Then you have all that love that you are ready to give to the next person. And then more love is created in the next relationship and the cycle continues. Love grows and awareness sharpens.
So here I am, with many relationships behind me (maybe too many), and so much love. But this one is different. It doesn't match the cycle. I am not done. I don't want anyone else ever at all (the thought of it literally makes me sick to my stomach). I wasn't done gleaning from my relationship with Ted, I never would have been. He was the relationship all the other ones had lead me to, had carved the way for. And now I have all this love and no matter how many times I say to myself 'give it to his spirit' and 'give it to yourself,' I don't really know how, and that is a very, very lonely feeling. People tell me, 'it will take time'. I hear that and I trust that, but 'time' for a woman who has never been alone for more than two months is terrifying. I am trying to just stuff this concern back into my brain and not focus on it, kind of like the photos, the voicemails, and the clothes in the closet that I'll deal with someday, maybe.
Two. I'm scared that Ted is sad. I don't know what my beliefs are exactly, but I do have confidence that in whatever way the realms work, that Ted is an angel. I had never really given too much thought to angels but prior to all this, I just kind of assumed they fly around being compassionate and shooting arrows of love at people and animals. Ted did that during his life, so I would hope that he's doing it now! But then I had a conversation with Ted's mentor... who is now my therapist. She pointed out that compassion, in it's purest state, would be hard to achieve without an understanding of pain or anguish. It made sense to me completely. How can an angel, or a spirit, or a master, or whatever you want to call it, feel true love without feeling it's opposite? Again, like two sides of your hand, love on the palm, anguish on the back.
So as I woke to the wind ripping through the trees, I feared that Ted was sad. That he was crying from whatever the bigger place is where he resides now. He doesn't have all of the thousands of people who've reached out to me, to help me, to hold me... there, with him, to help and to hold him. How can he? I mean, maybe we're doing it right and giving him peace, but maybe we're not. How do we know?
So probably the most difficult part of all of this to me right now, is the fear that Ted is suffering and that I can't help him: that he is asking for help through the wind. Maybe he's asking me not to leave the house for the weekend, because maybe he won't be able to see me in the mountains. But I don't know. And there's no way for me to ever know, for certain. But, Ted, my love, I hope that you are at peace, and that only those of us on Earth have to feel this sadness. And that the wind is just a breeze coming from a weather pattern that used to be a storm somewhere else, that has nothing to do with anger, sadness, or us. I love you.
I am going to Steamboat Springs today with my dad and three friends I went to prep school with. The four of us make up over ten percent of our 8th grade class. They are the old friends, the ones who come out of the woodwork to rally love and support. They all know you too, because you and I went to the same prep school, even though we didn't date until much later, and you were five-years older than I.
I think of you as a senior in high school, a very cool guy, even though you claimed you weren't. Me, a confused 8th grader, focusing on first-kisses and school dances and playing footsie with a cute boy at Assembly. You, soaking up art classes, playing bass, and singing lead vocals in a band called Endangered Feces at our school variety shows known as Coffeeshop. Me, overly concerned about my appearance. I was at a very high-tuition school but on an academic scholarship; all the kids in my class arrived, modeling the latest Abercrombie & Fitch khakis and flannels while I wore the J.C. Penny knockoffs. You, numbing your depression with a weed habit; sneaking out to the parking lot for a joint or a cigarette. You, looking for love in ways you weren't receiving it, unbeknownst to the fact that it was indeed embracing you always. You just wanted to fit in. Me, busted at Abercrombie & Fitch for shoplifting a pair of pants when I was supposed to be at ballet class. The noise of the security alarm still makes my heart skip a beat to this day. I just wanted to fit in.
You, always the jokester, heard that you could wear anything for your high school senior picture, so you decided that you'd shoot yours wearing nothing! Armed with a Tom-drum, you stood nude outside the school commons in front of the gazebo, your long hair pulled back into a ponytail making your ears look awkwardly large, eyes twinkling, you suspended the Tom in front of your privates. Mr. C, who's in-session class were witnesses to the photo shoot, cranked open his window and called out, "Ted, you're flattering yourself! All you need is a bongo!" You, unfazed (and knowing he was actually incorrect) grinned through your eyes as the camera clicked. A month later, the 8th grade me traded my photo for a copy of your photo. Maybe you didn't know, but they were being passed around the school like secret-underground Playboy magazines. I still have that photo, tattered in my wallet, it often falls out when I pull out my debit card or ID and I blush as I realize I'm holding the kiddie-porn version of the grown man I love, now a ghost.
You graduated, making your way to Oregon. And I continued at the school for another 4 years through high school: dancing, cheer-leading, high-jumping, sneaking into coat closets to make out with boys at school, sneaking out my window to go to a party, or sneaking boys into my window... always trying to be cooler than I thought I was and often acting pretty slutty. When I told you that, years later, you smiled and rolled your eyes, citing 'sexual liberation' as a better word. You admired me as a woman, even the teenage-version you never knew. Despite moving to Austin for college, I continued to generally date people from our school. Later, when we started dating, I told you that I always knew I was supposed to end up with someone from there, I just had to keep searching until I figured out who. It was you. I imagined the alumni newsletter arriving with news of our impending marriage:
"Ted Welles of '98 and Samantha Lipman of '02 are engaged to be married. They reside in Boulder, Colorado in a castle in the sky with their dog: Kira, cat: Beats, and roommate: Kevin. Their love is so off the charts that even our AP Statistics class can't chart it. When here at school, Mr. C favored Ted, but despised Sami; in fact, once he made her cry in front of the whole library. Sami always RSVPs them for alumni events, but they never show up because Ted doesn't actually want to go. Ted helped clean and organize the AV closet by the vendies: a true gentleman. Four-years later, Sami snuck in there to give a hand-job. They both were in Mrs. B's advisee and have dreams about the grammar they learned from her: Ted's are about being impeccably perfect and Sami's are about when she can break the rules. Maybe they'll get married in front of the Smead Building, in between the trees that smell like cum. We wish them a lifetime of love, happiness, Oxford commas, and financial contributions."
As the wind smacked the siding of our house this morning, it took me a long time to get out of bed. Every time I closed my eyes, trying to get a few more moments of rest, flashbacks from that terrible night would pop into my mind. I sighed and opened my eyes for the day. As the trauma of that night fades from immediacy, I think the PTSD is beginning to settle in. I heard a siren the other day and I felt my heart rise up through my throat to my crown. A bus pulled out into traffic, but not into my lane at all, and I swerved and cried out. I wonder if I'll be jumpy forever? I wonder if every time I feel love, I will also feel grief, like both sides of a hand: the back and the palm.
I opened the blinds and the sunlight wasn't there to greet me as it has been daily. The wind whirled and clouds moved in. Are you upset with me for leaving for the weekend?
I thought leaving the house would be good. It would give me a break from being completely engulfed in memories of you. Earlier this week I put away 3 baskets of your laundry. April stood chatting with me so I was less likely to stare at each t-shirt before hanging it, recall the last time I'd seen you in it and melt into the carpet sobbing, using each clean t-shirt to wipe my snot and dry my tears. I put each shirt back in your closet, color-coded, just how you like them. I felt a bit of guilt because I knew you would have ideally preferred me to tumble dry them all again for twenty-minutes; they were a bit crumpled after sitting in the baskets for a week and you would want them wrinkle-free. I put everything back in its place as if you were just gone on a trip or a tour or out walking the dog, about to pop back in, climb the stairs, kiss my forehead, and hop in the shower before sliding into a fresh shirt.
As I prepared to pack for the weekend trip, I pulled out my suitcase. It still had a luggage tag from our last trip. You always tore off the tags when unpacking, but I would leave them on: a reminder of the last time we went somewhere together. I studied it, trying to place where the tag was from. When was the last time I'd flown with that carry-on roller? My mind blank. My memory has been hazy these past couple weeks. I think the shock of the present is all my mind can wrap itself around, and my brain is saying "Don't worry about anything else right now, Sami. This is all you can handle for the time being."
I've avoided looking at pictures of us, watching the videos people are posting, or listening to the voicemails on my phone from you – even the one that's forty-seconds long and I've never listened to before. I feel so much pain without needing to see or hear the reminders. I'm living amongst the reminders. I changed the toilet paper roll yesterday thinking "he was the last one to change this roll". I touch everything gently: the shower handle, each piece of cutlery, the cat – maybe he was the last one to touch right here. I walk through the house in a daze, stopping to run my hand along the banister, remembering how just months ago you carefully wrapped it in streamers for my birthday party, redoing my half-assed attempt. I stop at the bookshelf; I read the titles and pull out books, leafing through them and gingerly touching earmarked pages. I have a huge stack of your books to read, dying to fill my mind with everything that was in your mind.
As I pack my clothes, I realize how painfully sad I am. I'm choosing outfits you won't see me in. "Why even bother," I ask myself. I'm leaving the house that's still full of you even though you aren't physically here. I tell myself it will be good to get away for a few days, noting to myself sensibly that I'm sitting in your tomb, suffocating in memories. But I love this tomb and each memory is beautiful and the thought of going away into the mountains and creating memories without you is fucking heartbreaking. My mind retorts. My heart cracks more, like a car's broken windshield in the dry mountain air or the Liberty Bell. How can it keep breaking more? I moved to the mountains to be with you. I would have chosen the sea if it were up to me alone, but I chose you and the mountains and I fell in love with their grounding and their strength and mostly I fell in love with YOU. And I need YOU. And I don't want to leave you, like you left me.
Last night I went out with the girls. Angie, Elizabeth, Signe, and I got our nails done and grabbed a bite of food. Ted, do you know that I have had a manicure every day for the past year in case you ever proposed to me? So that my hands would be a canvas for the beautiful, sparkling symbol of our love and our oath to be together forever? Do you know that when your family gathered around me and proposed to me on your behalf, my manicure was torn off, exposing layers of brittle nails and ripped cuticles? Not that it matters at all anymore, but it used to. I used to painstakingly choose a color every two weeks, over-analyzing, "Should this be the color I'm wearing when it happens?" My nail lady would smile through the language barrier, she got it. So last night, I chose a color. I chose it nearly as quickly as I chose the dress I wore to your funeral. Because those things don't matter anymore. Maybe they never should have mattered, but now they truly don't. Is that a lesson this is supposed to teach me? Did this happen so that I would be forced to see what's actually important? Love, not nails? Love, not fashion? Love, not marriage? Couldn't you have taught me this a different way, God?
All snuggled into a booth at a Mexican restaurant, the tears began. I'd been doing pretty well until that point. I told the girls how I was feeling scared about two things in particular, right now:
One. I'm scared of being alone. I have had boyfriends since I was 18-years-old. I've never been single for more than two months. I am now 30. That's twelve years of partnerships.
When relationships have ended in the past, it's because one or both partners decide it's time: everything has been gained from the relationship that can be. You glean from it and you learn what is right and what is not right for each individual. You probably leave some of your love with that person, a special place for their memory, but mainly, you take your love back. Then you have all that love that you are ready to give to the next person. And then more love is created in the next relationship and the cycle continues. Love grows and awareness sharpens.
So here I am, with many relationships behind me (maybe too many), and so much love. But this one is different. It doesn't match the cycle. I am not done. I don't want anyone else ever at all (the thought of it literally makes me sick to my stomach). I wasn't done gleaning from my relationship with Ted, I never would have been. He was the relationship all the other ones had lead me to, had carved the way for. And now I have all this love and no matter how many times I say to myself 'give it to his spirit' and 'give it to yourself,' I don't really know how, and that is a very, very lonely feeling. People tell me, 'it will take time'. I hear that and I trust that, but 'time' for a woman who has never been alone for more than two months is terrifying. I am trying to just stuff this concern back into my brain and not focus on it, kind of like the photos, the voicemails, and the clothes in the closet that I'll deal with someday, maybe.
Two. I'm scared that Ted is sad. I don't know what my beliefs are exactly, but I do have confidence that in whatever way the realms work, that Ted is an angel. I had never really given too much thought to angels but prior to all this, I just kind of assumed they fly around being compassionate and shooting arrows of love at people and animals. Ted did that during his life, so I would hope that he's doing it now! But then I had a conversation with Ted's mentor... who is now my therapist. She pointed out that compassion, in it's purest state, would be hard to achieve without an understanding of pain or anguish. It made sense to me completely. How can an angel, or a spirit, or a master, or whatever you want to call it, feel true love without feeling it's opposite? Again, like two sides of your hand, love on the palm, anguish on the back.
So as I woke to the wind ripping through the trees, I feared that Ted was sad. That he was crying from whatever the bigger place is where he resides now. He doesn't have all of the thousands of people who've reached out to me, to help me, to hold me... there, with him, to help and to hold him. How can he? I mean, maybe we're doing it right and giving him peace, but maybe we're not. How do we know?
So probably the most difficult part of all of this to me right now, is the fear that Ted is suffering and that I can't help him: that he is asking for help through the wind. Maybe he's asking me not to leave the house for the weekend, because maybe he won't be able to see me in the mountains. But I don't know. And there's no way for me to ever know, for certain. But, Ted, my love, I hope that you are at peace, and that only those of us on Earth have to feel this sadness. And that the wind is just a breeze coming from a weather pattern that used to be a storm somewhere else, that has nothing to do with anger, sadness, or us. I love you.
Ritual
As I write this morning, I'm sitting out on our deck. I can hear a woodpecker pecking at a tree. I wonder if it's the same bird that just a few weeks ago was hammering at our stucco as we sat in this same spot, enjoying the Colorado morning. You pelted the bird with one of the buckeyes your mom had sent from autumn Ohio. It flew off and then landed again, continuing to peck on another side of the house. We sat, in silence. You, staring into nature and sipping your tea. Me, checking social media, emailing with my co-workers, and drinking my daily half cup of coffee. "I wish there was a coffee cup that stayed warm so that my coffee wouldn't get cold by the time I'm halfway done," I'd say. "Maybe it's a sign you only need a half cup, you seem pretty awake already!" you'd joke. You, peaceful. Me, frantic, some minor work stress would have me yammering already.
My phone buzzed, it was an old friend I rarely talk to, "Oh my goddddd, guess who it is?" One of the ones that it's probably best that I only rarely talk to. You, knowing this completely and knowing who it was, smiled understandingly and without a drop of judgment. You know how painstaking it is for me to cut off love and people I have cared about, you asked how she was. You sent her your love. I get up off my chair and scoot in next to you, throwing my arms around you, and more importantly, putting down my phone. We kiss. You tell me I taste like coffee. You like the taste of coffee.
Cuddled up on the patio sofa, we quietly admire Boulder from the top of our mountain. You sing, quoting your favorite band, "Colorado bluebird sky, we could live a mile high...Colorado, bluebird sky!" I snuggle in more, you know it's because I love when you sing. Our 'castle in the sky,' we called it. Thirty-six acres of untouched nature. You planned on making secret trails, rock formations, and forts hidden throughout the property, so that one day our children would find them when exploring.
Kira meanders through the ripped screen door, one of her doggy-boyfriends had busted through it a few months ago, and we decided to wait for the renovations before fixing it. Kira sniffs into the Colorado air, her tail gently wags as she reminds us how happy she is here, now a mountain-dog instead of an Austin-Texas-suburbia-dog.
Kira lays down on the edge of the deck, her front paws fit under where the deck's railing begins, and her chin resting gently on one of the grates. "She's so adorable when she lays like that," you say. Her ears perk as she spots deer. "They're looking for the salt-lick, I need to remember to pick one up from McGuckin's," you say. Kira watches the deer intently. She'd never seen deer in her 9-years until moving to Colorado. I grab my phone and hop up from my perch next to you and sprawl across the deck as I capture a picture of both Kira's cuteness and the deer in the distance. I send the picture to my old friend. You throw another buckeye at the woodpecker who's returned to the stucco above us, an odd act of violence considering your constant gentle nature. You miss drastically. I think it's adorable.
I hear your stomach rumble and automatically we get up to go make breakfast together. As we walk back inside we stop to watch a hummingbird at the feeder. "Damnit, I need to fill that feeder too," you remember. "I will do it right now," I respond. It's still not done. Another hummingbird arrives and scares off the first. You tell me a fact about how hummingbirds are one of the most aggressive birds despite their cuteness.
As we walk inside, we slide into our customary morning ritual. You make the breakfast salads: soft boiled eggs over organic salad greens, avocado, hemp seeds, broccoli sprouts, tomatoes, pickled-something, and any other leftovers from the fridge that make sense, topped with health tonic or a mix of apple cider vinegar, coconut aminos, tumeric, cayenne, Himalayan sea salt, and olive oil. I make the fruit salad: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and maybe a peach or mango dressed with lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, and shredded pickled ginger. You have a distinct nutritional reason for each ingredient. I don't remember them, but trust you. We chat about our day as we glide around each other in the kitchen. I notice you glancing at the clock. You like to be in front of your drum-kit practicing by nine, and it's 8:39. Twenty-one minutes is not much time for you to eat. You like to move slow, especially in the mornings. "You should chew each bite at least ten-times in order to get the full nutritional value of the food," you'd remind me often as I wolfed down my meals. One of the very few things we differed on was our pace. Why did you die so quickly, Teddy? Why didn't you take your time?
We finish the food prep and sit down at the table together. We chat about what yoga class we want to go to that day. We would go to yoga together a few times a week, but also felt comfortable attending classes independently, always honoring the practice, teacher, and timing that worked for each others mood or schedule. You fill me in on the latest detail about a rehearsal or upcoming gig. I'd offer my thoughts or request a song for the setlist. I'd let you know how many pages I was planning to design that day for my magazine. I'd tell you about a certain interview or celebrity we were featuring and read you a pull-quote I thought you'd like from the content. Whichever one of us felt less crunched for time would offer to do the dishes. We'd say "I love you," hug, kiss, and then part ways – you down to the music studio in the basement, me up to my office upstairs. Morning ritual complete.
Yesterday was really hard.
I haven't 'heard' from you in a while. I saw the bear over a week ago. The high of your memorial has passed, and a dreary lull has set in. Your friends who all flew in are now gone, back at work. I'd been asking to see a fox for over a week, with no luck. I've only seen two foxes ever, so it's no surprise.
When we first started dating and were still long-distance, you went on a hut trip with a group of friends. You told me a story about how it was late at night and you all decided to go on a long hike. Most of the people had been drinking throughout the evening, but you were sober and led the way. You all hiked up Vail mountain, the moonlight reflected on the white snow as your guide. You made it to your destination, only a few people left in the group, most having turned back along the way, probably ready to pass out or refill a flask. Once at the top, you told me how you sat down on a rock or a log to eat a Kind-Bar, you snacked nearly every hour. Suddenly, you noticed a fox standing very nearby. You slowly held out the bar, and shockingly, the fox came and ate it, right out of your gloved-hand, then darted off. You were incredibly moved. Since then, you decided your spirit animal must be a fox.
Months later, when I was visiting you in Boulder, we went into a gem shop and read about animal totems. I read you the fox and the bear. I felt that you fit the bear description more, and later, purchased you a Native-American bear carving which I'd strung to a necklace and given you for your 34th birthday. But I knew you still loved the fox, especially after that incident.
A year after I gave you that gift, yesterday, your 35th birthday, I went into the Bill Cronin Goldsmiths with your Aunt Ginny. The aunt that I'd deeply connected with every time I'd talked to her during your life. The aunt whose incredible book I inhaled, feeling as though I was reading her intimate journal. The aunt I called that night of the sirens and the detectives as I watched the ambulance pull away from our house, the EMS refusing to let me ride along. The aunt who caught me in the hospital, as I fell to the ground screaming, after a stoic male nurse ushered us into a windowless, chair-less closet and said, "David is no longer with us." His name is Ted.
Ginny and I went to the jewelers together to hear the story of the engagement ring you had designed for me. I was doing OK yesterday morning until I walked through those doors. A girl who worked there said, "Are you Sami?" Her voice was thick with pity. "Yes." I started to cry. She told me how sorry she was. "Thank you," I muttered, my most repeated words of the past couple weeks. The jewelers, Bill and Carrie, took us and a box of Kleenex into the back room. They told me about how they are generally so lucky to work with people during the happiest times of their lives, during the birth of new partnerships, the anniversaries of love, the precious moments. Not deaths before engagements. "Nothing like this has ever happened," they tell me. I'm relieved for that, relieved that no one else has had to feel this despair. But why me? I thought that a lot yesterday.
They told me how they see couples all the time. They see men choosing rings for women daily. And because of that, they have an eye for the 'good ones'. You were a good one. We were a good one. They told me that you took more care and interest than most men in the process of creating this beautiful ring: designing it hand-in-hand with them, incorporating diamonds from your grandparent's broach, and choosing a flawless center pear-shape stone, just like the one I'd shown you. You were going to pick it up last Thursday. Five days after your death. They cried. Ginny cried. I cried. Probably some of the only tears of sadness that have ever hit the floor of that goldsmith shop. This was not how it was supposed to be.
I went to yoga again yesterday. I remembered how we had gone to yoga together on my 30th birthday this year. No one else had shown up for class, so it was a private for just you and I. I knew that, no matter how hard it was, it was important to go to yoga on your birthday. For you and for me, our ritual. I went to a different studio and a different teacher than I had a few days ago when I'd returned to my practice for the first time since this disaster. I'm being incredibly careful with the classes I choose because I'm so incredibly vulnerable right now. Elizabeth joined me. We went to the back. Her on one side, a wall on the other. Before your death, I was front and center, now I hide. The class didn't go as well as I expected. The room was packed, mat to mat. The music was loud, lyrical, and sad. The teacher had us balancing a lot, on one foot, with bound-arm variations. I sensed immediately that I don't need to be balancing in yoga right now. I don't need to be on one-foot, with my arms wrapped asymmetrically. My life is already the most chilling, bound-up balancing act I've ever experienced, by far. I need to be low to the earth, on two feet, grounded. I want to hug the earth for security, not try to fly. I was flying two weeks ago, soaring. And I crashed.
After yoga, on my drive home, I was crying so hard that it looked like I was driving through a storm. I pull over, unwilling to drive recklessly. I cry loudly and call out your name. I punch the steering wheel and scream at the heavens. Why??? It's his birthday!!! I realize that I'm really, really missing you, my best friend. I think about how during yoga, the teacher had played the same song that she had a couple weeks before. I'd come home and you'd asked me how class was. "Good. But she played the world's worst song for yoga," I'd answered. A quiz! You lit up, and started guessing. "Krishna Das?" You joked. Knowing I liked him, you always referred to him as drunk Eddie Veder.' "Wagon-wheel!?" Getting warmer. I couldn't wait, "FREE-FALLING!" "Noooooooooooooo," you replied. We laughed. Who would I tell these stories to now? Who would I tell that this time, not only had she played it again, but it had been a cover, sung by a woman, which obviously topped the badness-chart in comparison to the original.
I wiped my eyes and drove home. I cried the whole way, the most crying I'd done in a few days. Helpless, woeful, and really sad. Keeping my eyes wiped only to look for other drivers on the road and mostly, a fox. I was exhausted, but knew I had to pull it together. I was going out with thirty of your friends for sushi, your all-time favorite meal, to celebrate your birthday. Without you. I sure hope they serve sushi in heaven.
Dinner was touching. I quietly wondered what the turnout would have been if you were still alive. Uni was ordered in your honor. Quail-egg shots were slurped. Boat after boat of sushi arrived. I ordered some of your favorites, even though they weren't mine, like saba and tobiko. I thought of you as every piece of roe exploded and gushed in my mouth. A cheers was made, "To Ted's life! Kampai" Glasses were clinked, smiles all around.
I couldn't do it. I excused myself to the bathroom. I wasn't ready for their smiles, I want your smile. The girls knocked at the door. The girls who just a few weeks ago were the girlfriends of your friends who I was just getting to know, but now are my roots and my lifeline and so incredibly important to me. They hugged me, understanding. No words needed.
On the drive home I was so tired. Luckily, I've been able to sleep a lot throughout this nightmare, completely exhausted. I keep telling myself that it's you helping me get through the nights. I am not certain, because there's no way to prove it, which drives me nuts. But I try to have faith that your soul is snuggling up with me every night, guiding me to sleep, and holding me in your wings as I dream peacefully and wake up with no memory of what I've dreamt. Strange, because I used to always remember my dreams. So, I curl up in the back of the car as Kevin drives and my dad sits shotgun – they talk about music and I drift off to sleep like a baby in a carseat, rocked by the rhythm of the road.
Suddenly, Kevin yells, "SAMI! Wake up!" I shoot up, we're nearing our driveway, angling around the last turn on our road. Off to the right of the road, where I instinctively looked, stands a small red fox. We make eye contact, then he disappears into the darkness.
My phone buzzed, it was an old friend I rarely talk to, "Oh my goddddd, guess who it is?" One of the ones that it's probably best that I only rarely talk to. You, knowing this completely and knowing who it was, smiled understandingly and without a drop of judgment. You know how painstaking it is for me to cut off love and people I have cared about, you asked how she was. You sent her your love. I get up off my chair and scoot in next to you, throwing my arms around you, and more importantly, putting down my phone. We kiss. You tell me I taste like coffee. You like the taste of coffee.
Cuddled up on the patio sofa, we quietly admire Boulder from the top of our mountain. You sing, quoting your favorite band, "Colorado bluebird sky, we could live a mile high...Colorado, bluebird sky!" I snuggle in more, you know it's because I love when you sing. Our 'castle in the sky,' we called it. Thirty-six acres of untouched nature. You planned on making secret trails, rock formations, and forts hidden throughout the property, so that one day our children would find them when exploring.
Kira meanders through the ripped screen door, one of her doggy-boyfriends had busted through it a few months ago, and we decided to wait for the renovations before fixing it. Kira sniffs into the Colorado air, her tail gently wags as she reminds us how happy she is here, now a mountain-dog instead of an Austin-Texas-suburbia-dog.
Kira lays down on the edge of the deck, her front paws fit under where the deck's railing begins, and her chin resting gently on one of the grates. "She's so adorable when she lays like that," you say. Her ears perk as she spots deer. "They're looking for the salt-lick, I need to remember to pick one up from McGuckin's," you say. Kira watches the deer intently. She'd never seen deer in her 9-years until moving to Colorado. I grab my phone and hop up from my perch next to you and sprawl across the deck as I capture a picture of both Kira's cuteness and the deer in the distance. I send the picture to my old friend. You throw another buckeye at the woodpecker who's returned to the stucco above us, an odd act of violence considering your constant gentle nature. You miss drastically. I think it's adorable.
I hear your stomach rumble and automatically we get up to go make breakfast together. As we walk back inside we stop to watch a hummingbird at the feeder. "Damnit, I need to fill that feeder too," you remember. "I will do it right now," I respond. It's still not done. Another hummingbird arrives and scares off the first. You tell me a fact about how hummingbirds are one of the most aggressive birds despite their cuteness.
As we walk inside, we slide into our customary morning ritual. You make the breakfast salads: soft boiled eggs over organic salad greens, avocado, hemp seeds, broccoli sprouts, tomatoes, pickled-something, and any other leftovers from the fridge that make sense, topped with health tonic or a mix of apple cider vinegar, coconut aminos, tumeric, cayenne, Himalayan sea salt, and olive oil. I make the fruit salad: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and maybe a peach or mango dressed with lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, and shredded pickled ginger. You have a distinct nutritional reason for each ingredient. I don't remember them, but trust you. We chat about our day as we glide around each other in the kitchen. I notice you glancing at the clock. You like to be in front of your drum-kit practicing by nine, and it's 8:39. Twenty-one minutes is not much time for you to eat. You like to move slow, especially in the mornings. "You should chew each bite at least ten-times in order to get the full nutritional value of the food," you'd remind me often as I wolfed down my meals. One of the very few things we differed on was our pace. Why did you die so quickly, Teddy? Why didn't you take your time?
We finish the food prep and sit down at the table together. We chat about what yoga class we want to go to that day. We would go to yoga together a few times a week, but also felt comfortable attending classes independently, always honoring the practice, teacher, and timing that worked for each others mood or schedule. You fill me in on the latest detail about a rehearsal or upcoming gig. I'd offer my thoughts or request a song for the setlist. I'd let you know how many pages I was planning to design that day for my magazine. I'd tell you about a certain interview or celebrity we were featuring and read you a pull-quote I thought you'd like from the content. Whichever one of us felt less crunched for time would offer to do the dishes. We'd say "I love you," hug, kiss, and then part ways – you down to the music studio in the basement, me up to my office upstairs. Morning ritual complete.
Yesterday was really hard.
I haven't 'heard' from you in a while. I saw the bear over a week ago. The high of your memorial has passed, and a dreary lull has set in. Your friends who all flew in are now gone, back at work. I'd been asking to see a fox for over a week, with no luck. I've only seen two foxes ever, so it's no surprise.
When we first started dating and were still long-distance, you went on a hut trip with a group of friends. You told me a story about how it was late at night and you all decided to go on a long hike. Most of the people had been drinking throughout the evening, but you were sober and led the way. You all hiked up Vail mountain, the moonlight reflected on the white snow as your guide. You made it to your destination, only a few people left in the group, most having turned back along the way, probably ready to pass out or refill a flask. Once at the top, you told me how you sat down on a rock or a log to eat a Kind-Bar, you snacked nearly every hour. Suddenly, you noticed a fox standing very nearby. You slowly held out the bar, and shockingly, the fox came and ate it, right out of your gloved-hand, then darted off. You were incredibly moved. Since then, you decided your spirit animal must be a fox.
Months later, when I was visiting you in Boulder, we went into a gem shop and read about animal totems. I read you the fox and the bear. I felt that you fit the bear description more, and later, purchased you a Native-American bear carving which I'd strung to a necklace and given you for your 34th birthday. But I knew you still loved the fox, especially after that incident.
A year after I gave you that gift, yesterday, your 35th birthday, I went into the Bill Cronin Goldsmiths with your Aunt Ginny. The aunt that I'd deeply connected with every time I'd talked to her during your life. The aunt whose incredible book I inhaled, feeling as though I was reading her intimate journal. The aunt I called that night of the sirens and the detectives as I watched the ambulance pull away from our house, the EMS refusing to let me ride along. The aunt who caught me in the hospital, as I fell to the ground screaming, after a stoic male nurse ushered us into a windowless, chair-less closet and said, "David is no longer with us." His name is Ted.
Ginny and I went to the jewelers together to hear the story of the engagement ring you had designed for me. I was doing OK yesterday morning until I walked through those doors. A girl who worked there said, "Are you Sami?" Her voice was thick with pity. "Yes." I started to cry. She told me how sorry she was. "Thank you," I muttered, my most repeated words of the past couple weeks. The jewelers, Bill and Carrie, took us and a box of Kleenex into the back room. They told me about how they are generally so lucky to work with people during the happiest times of their lives, during the birth of new partnerships, the anniversaries of love, the precious moments. Not deaths before engagements. "Nothing like this has ever happened," they tell me. I'm relieved for that, relieved that no one else has had to feel this despair. But why me? I thought that a lot yesterday.
They told me how they see couples all the time. They see men choosing rings for women daily. And because of that, they have an eye for the 'good ones'. You were a good one. We were a good one. They told me that you took more care and interest than most men in the process of creating this beautiful ring: designing it hand-in-hand with them, incorporating diamonds from your grandparent's broach, and choosing a flawless center pear-shape stone, just like the one I'd shown you. You were going to pick it up last Thursday. Five days after your death. They cried. Ginny cried. I cried. Probably some of the only tears of sadness that have ever hit the floor of that goldsmith shop. This was not how it was supposed to be.
I went to yoga again yesterday. I remembered how we had gone to yoga together on my 30th birthday this year. No one else had shown up for class, so it was a private for just you and I. I knew that, no matter how hard it was, it was important to go to yoga on your birthday. For you and for me, our ritual. I went to a different studio and a different teacher than I had a few days ago when I'd returned to my practice for the first time since this disaster. I'm being incredibly careful with the classes I choose because I'm so incredibly vulnerable right now. Elizabeth joined me. We went to the back. Her on one side, a wall on the other. Before your death, I was front and center, now I hide. The class didn't go as well as I expected. The room was packed, mat to mat. The music was loud, lyrical, and sad. The teacher had us balancing a lot, on one foot, with bound-arm variations. I sensed immediately that I don't need to be balancing in yoga right now. I don't need to be on one-foot, with my arms wrapped asymmetrically. My life is already the most chilling, bound-up balancing act I've ever experienced, by far. I need to be low to the earth, on two feet, grounded. I want to hug the earth for security, not try to fly. I was flying two weeks ago, soaring. And I crashed.
After yoga, on my drive home, I was crying so hard that it looked like I was driving through a storm. I pull over, unwilling to drive recklessly. I cry loudly and call out your name. I punch the steering wheel and scream at the heavens. Why??? It's his birthday!!! I realize that I'm really, really missing you, my best friend. I think about how during yoga, the teacher had played the same song that she had a couple weeks before. I'd come home and you'd asked me how class was. "Good. But she played the world's worst song for yoga," I'd answered. A quiz! You lit up, and started guessing. "Krishna Das?" You joked. Knowing I liked him, you always referred to him as drunk Eddie Veder.' "Wagon-wheel!?" Getting warmer. I couldn't wait, "FREE-FALLING!" "Noooooooooooooo," you replied. We laughed. Who would I tell these stories to now? Who would I tell that this time, not only had she played it again, but it had been a cover, sung by a woman, which obviously topped the badness-chart in comparison to the original.
I wiped my eyes and drove home. I cried the whole way, the most crying I'd done in a few days. Helpless, woeful, and really sad. Keeping my eyes wiped only to look for other drivers on the road and mostly, a fox. I was exhausted, but knew I had to pull it together. I was going out with thirty of your friends for sushi, your all-time favorite meal, to celebrate your birthday. Without you. I sure hope they serve sushi in heaven.
Dinner was touching. I quietly wondered what the turnout would have been if you were still alive. Uni was ordered in your honor. Quail-egg shots were slurped. Boat after boat of sushi arrived. I ordered some of your favorites, even though they weren't mine, like saba and tobiko. I thought of you as every piece of roe exploded and gushed in my mouth. A cheers was made, "To Ted's life! Kampai" Glasses were clinked, smiles all around.
I couldn't do it. I excused myself to the bathroom. I wasn't ready for their smiles, I want your smile. The girls knocked at the door. The girls who just a few weeks ago were the girlfriends of your friends who I was just getting to know, but now are my roots and my lifeline and so incredibly important to me. They hugged me, understanding. No words needed.
On the drive home I was so tired. Luckily, I've been able to sleep a lot throughout this nightmare, completely exhausted. I keep telling myself that it's you helping me get through the nights. I am not certain, because there's no way to prove it, which drives me nuts. But I try to have faith that your soul is snuggling up with me every night, guiding me to sleep, and holding me in your wings as I dream peacefully and wake up with no memory of what I've dreamt. Strange, because I used to always remember my dreams. So, I curl up in the back of the car as Kevin drives and my dad sits shotgun – they talk about music and I drift off to sleep like a baby in a carseat, rocked by the rhythm of the road.
Suddenly, Kevin yells, "SAMI! Wake up!" I shoot up, we're nearing our driveway, angling around the last turn on our road. Off to the right of the road, where I instinctively looked, stands a small red fox. We make eye contact, then he disappears into the darkness.
Breath by breath
Never before has the importance of being in the present felt so desperately important to me. I teach the importance of presence in my yoga classes; but until now, actually living from breath to breath, has never felt so intensely necessary. Focusing steadfastly on just.this.breath. has allowed over a week to pass since my soulmate tragically died in my arms. It's allowed me to wake up in the middle of the night, use the restroom, and go back to sleep without my mind darting to what was, and what was to be. It's allowed me to make it through a yoga class, completely dripping with grief and a sadness I never knew humanly possible. It's allowed me to eat, a bit, focusing on just chewing this one bite and keeping it down. It's allowed me to meditate on the Earth's beauty around me, the cycles still going on, even though my heart feels like its stopped. The sunrise is still beautiful, in fact, more beautiful than I ever noticed. The hair on my legs still grows, even though I don't understand why, and I wish it didn't. When I focus on each breath, my gaze moves more slowly. My eyes catch onto something they wouldn't have even noticed 10 days ago: a rainbow on the wall, a particularly fluffy cloud, a spider making its journey across the floor. There's a gentleness in my being where there used to be a rush. I want to know how the rainbow got there, where the cloud will go next, and help the spider complete his journey safely. Ted, you always told me to slow down. Now, you have it.
Yesterday, I couldn't do it. I was not breath to breath. I could hardly get out of bed. My mom dragged me out, literally dressing me as if I was a toddler who hadn't yet learned how. We went to the farmer's market to pick up a few things. We had only gone to the market together a couple times but immediately I was slapped by the memories. The same girl was at the cheese booth. Handing out samples to anxious customers. I was one of those customers just a few weeks ago – impatient to try the new goat's milk cheese and purchase it for our dinner guests. The man at the pickled-things booth. My mind raced to all of the jars of pickled calendula, sauerkraut, cucumbers, beets, garlic, olives in our fridge: your favorite snack or daily salad topper. We went into the food-court area. It was just a couple weeks ago we'd shared the Thai Salad. I was hungover, you ate most of it.
The most painful part yet: My eyes glanced at a man who was gingerly reaching across the table to his beloved's hand. He softly rubbed her hand and smiled peacefully at her across the table without words. No! That's how you grab my hand, Teddy. That's our look. That's our peace, and our love, and our gentleness. Fuck! Where are you!?
I'm seated, as far as possible from the smiling couple, trying to eat a crepe that's full of powerfully rich ingredients: smoked salmon, cream, capers, even bacon, I think. The richness disgusts me, it tastes too delectable for my grey insides. I pick at it then push it aside, realizing I'll need to rework my food choices. A little boy, playing with a cardboard sword leftover from his Halloween costume approaches my mother and I. He's slicing away at imaginary bad-guys in space just as I'm desperately looking for my man in the same invisible space. His eyes meet mine with that pure, all-knowing, yet completely innocent gaze of a child. I immediately weep. I think of the boy we were to create, Teddy. Half you, half me. "I hope they'll have your long legs!" I always joked. "Your good teeth and blonde hair," you would respond. "You have blonde hair too!" I would always argue. "My hair is BROWN!" you would say. We would laugh and you'd slide your hand across the picnic table, absentmindedly, to wrap your long, gentle fingers in mine. Both of us, silently and mischievously smiling as we imagined the brightness of the future we knew we deserved and had finally found. "Until then, we'll just practice, A LOT," we'd joke. Tears streamed down my face as the reality of this crushed future faced me through the innocent eyes of the boy with the sword.
Last Wednesday, your family proposed to me on your behalf, Teddy. Your mom, dad, sisters & brothers-in-law took me down to a little sitting area next to your Aunt Ginny's lake. They all held me and cried as your mom opened a ring-box, containing the most breath-taking diamond on Earth, and asked for my hand for you, and more importantly, for us - your family and I. I accepted, of course. The ring fit perfectly, the sparkle unavoidable. If your spirit were to exist in a diamond, it would be this one.
I learned of it containing diamonds from your grandparent's 50-year anniversary broach. I learned that you were going to propose to me any day. A morning, your mom told me, when I wouldn't expect it because it would be first thing, and then we'd have the whole day to celebrate and to plan our future. Now as a look at my ring-finger and see it dripping in sparkle, I think back on how much our proposal meant to me just 9 days ago. I wanted that SO badly. I wanted that guarantee of our future. I want to be able to hold up my hand in pride and not even have to say, "look how much he loves me!" Now, I look down and the sadness resurfaces, again, and again. An engagement with no celebration, no parties, no registries, no wedding, no first kiss, no wedding-night. Did the Universe know this was going to happen when you chose a diamond shaped like a teardrop?
Now the whole desire for that beautiful engagement seems so trivial. All I want is you. No jewels or rings or promises, it's all fucking worthless without you. Without your laugh and the boyish glimmer in your eye when you do it. Your soft and inviting voice, always full of love. Your touch, knowing that sometimes there are no words needed, just a hug. Your humor, quite dirty, but still no match for mine. Your wit, always looking for a deeper lesson within. I will try to embody all of those beautiful elements of yours. I will continue to pick myself off the ground, breath by breath, moment by moment. I will try not to let my obsessive thoughts of the past and broken-future control me. I will try to modulate this sadness, one step at a time. I will recognize that grief is shattering to linear thought, it's not a disappearing act and it will come in waves. And I know, that there will never be a moment in my life when I think of you without being grateful for the pureness of our love, more pure than even this gorgeous stone on my hand.
I love you, Ted.
Yesterday, I couldn't do it. I was not breath to breath. I could hardly get out of bed. My mom dragged me out, literally dressing me as if I was a toddler who hadn't yet learned how. We went to the farmer's market to pick up a few things. We had only gone to the market together a couple times but immediately I was slapped by the memories. The same girl was at the cheese booth. Handing out samples to anxious customers. I was one of those customers just a few weeks ago – impatient to try the new goat's milk cheese and purchase it for our dinner guests. The man at the pickled-things booth. My mind raced to all of the jars of pickled calendula, sauerkraut, cucumbers, beets, garlic, olives in our fridge: your favorite snack or daily salad topper. We went into the food-court area. It was just a couple weeks ago we'd shared the Thai Salad. I was hungover, you ate most of it.
The most painful part yet: My eyes glanced at a man who was gingerly reaching across the table to his beloved's hand. He softly rubbed her hand and smiled peacefully at her across the table without words. No! That's how you grab my hand, Teddy. That's our look. That's our peace, and our love, and our gentleness. Fuck! Where are you!?
I'm seated, as far as possible from the smiling couple, trying to eat a crepe that's full of powerfully rich ingredients: smoked salmon, cream, capers, even bacon, I think. The richness disgusts me, it tastes too delectable for my grey insides. I pick at it then push it aside, realizing I'll need to rework my food choices. A little boy, playing with a cardboard sword leftover from his Halloween costume approaches my mother and I. He's slicing away at imaginary bad-guys in space just as I'm desperately looking for my man in the same invisible space. His eyes meet mine with that pure, all-knowing, yet completely innocent gaze of a child. I immediately weep. I think of the boy we were to create, Teddy. Half you, half me. "I hope they'll have your long legs!" I always joked. "Your good teeth and blonde hair," you would respond. "You have blonde hair too!" I would always argue. "My hair is BROWN!" you would say. We would laugh and you'd slide your hand across the picnic table, absentmindedly, to wrap your long, gentle fingers in mine. Both of us, silently and mischievously smiling as we imagined the brightness of the future we knew we deserved and had finally found. "Until then, we'll just practice, A LOT," we'd joke. Tears streamed down my face as the reality of this crushed future faced me through the innocent eyes of the boy with the sword.
Last Wednesday, your family proposed to me on your behalf, Teddy. Your mom, dad, sisters & brothers-in-law took me down to a little sitting area next to your Aunt Ginny's lake. They all held me and cried as your mom opened a ring-box, containing the most breath-taking diamond on Earth, and asked for my hand for you, and more importantly, for us - your family and I. I accepted, of course. The ring fit perfectly, the sparkle unavoidable. If your spirit were to exist in a diamond, it would be this one.
I learned of it containing diamonds from your grandparent's 50-year anniversary broach. I learned that you were going to propose to me any day. A morning, your mom told me, when I wouldn't expect it because it would be first thing, and then we'd have the whole day to celebrate and to plan our future. Now as a look at my ring-finger and see it dripping in sparkle, I think back on how much our proposal meant to me just 9 days ago. I wanted that SO badly. I wanted that guarantee of our future. I want to be able to hold up my hand in pride and not even have to say, "look how much he loves me!" Now, I look down and the sadness resurfaces, again, and again. An engagement with no celebration, no parties, no registries, no wedding, no first kiss, no wedding-night. Did the Universe know this was going to happen when you chose a diamond shaped like a teardrop?
Now the whole desire for that beautiful engagement seems so trivial. All I want is you. No jewels or rings or promises, it's all fucking worthless without you. Without your laugh and the boyish glimmer in your eye when you do it. Your soft and inviting voice, always full of love. Your touch, knowing that sometimes there are no words needed, just a hug. Your humor, quite dirty, but still no match for mine. Your wit, always looking for a deeper lesson within. I will try to embody all of those beautiful elements of yours. I will continue to pick myself off the ground, breath by breath, moment by moment. I will try not to let my obsessive thoughts of the past and broken-future control me. I will try to modulate this sadness, one step at a time. I will recognize that grief is shattering to linear thought, it's not a disappearing act and it will come in waves. And I know, that there will never be a moment in my life when I think of you without being grateful for the pureness of our love, more pure than even this gorgeous stone on my hand.
I love you, Ted.
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