Tomorrow it will be 1 year since losing you. I lay here in your house again. We’re getting ready to move back to Washington and staying with Dad until we fly out. I can’t help but think back to this time last year, sleeping on the couch, giving you drugs every 2-3 hrs to keep you comfortable, knowing we would soon lose you. You were lying in the living room in the bed supplied by hospice. We could hear the rattle in your throat while you breathed. At this point, you were just a shell of your former self – no longer conscious, your beautiful presence gone. Sometime in the early morning, maybe between 4-7 am, you took your last breath. I wasn’t awake to see it, but when we got up to give you another round of drugs, you were gone. And nothing has been the same since.
We fly back to Washington on Wednesday. I wish you were coming. It’s so hard thinking how it could have been different. My heart hurts knowing that you still wanted to be here, to watch your grandchildren grow. You had so much life, so many things you wanted to do. But, it was taken from you. So many times you had tried to believe there was a reason for it all. That better times were coming. I don’t know how to reconcile the cruelty of this world with my desire for meaning. I too want there to be a purpose for what’s happened, but I can’t find it. I can create one, but it wouldn’t be better than having you here.
We’re going to try to start fresh again in Washington. Kind of a new beginning for us I suppose, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget what could have been. I’ll try to grow from this as best I can. We all know the saying, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Well you died and I don’t feel stronger. It’s a largely bullshit saying used as a coping mechanism. Our brains are funny that way. We have to continue on because we don’t know any other way, so we grasp at whatever ideas get us through.
I love you. I miss you. I hope somewhere you’re laughing. I miss your laughter. I’ll do my best to think of the fun we had, of laughter, but the tears will still flow.
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