On the First Anniversary of the Last Day of Your Life

I do not remember much from those 24 hours before I lost my grip on you. 

Did I hug you tightly in the morning? Did I tell you I loved you at night? Was I patient and kind when you needed help? Or was I tired and burnt out and short? Most likely, I know, I was all of those things at different times. 

I remember one thing vividly. 

You stood at the bottom of the stairs. You seemed tired, but not physically so. I rarely saw that in you, the slightest hint of defeat, of being worn down by your life, by your disease, by the hundreds of things you loved about yourself that you’d lost, by how hard it had become to get through a day, to exist in the world in your ever-diminishing body. 

I looked into your eyes, and I asked, “You ok?”

And you said something you had never said to me before when that question was about your head and your heart rather than your body. 

“No.”

You paused for the briefest moment and then added, “But I will be.”

Did you know, my love? Did you have a feeling? A sense that time was running out? 

The leaves on the trees are changing colors. Out the window, on morning walks, driving the kids here and there, I live in a flashback. I want to warn that me from one year ago, but, like watching a horror movie, I know where the danger lies, and I am helpless to do anything about it. 

I think about these last 12 months. My throat tightens. My eyes sting. I have lived without you. I have done this most impossible thing of continuing to breathe after you stopped. I have grieved, and I have loved. I have laughed, and I have cried. I have seen the immense beauty and the immeasurable sadness in every sunrise and sunset. I have guided our children through the rubble, been brought to my knees with the need to parent with you by my side. 

I have listened to my sadness, sat with it, honored it. I have gone back to the gym, journaled and walked and paid attention when my body has told me to. I have tried to be gentle with our babies, with myself. 

But now, my love, I am so tired. 

In my bones, and in my heart, and in my soul. 

I have kept going for these last 12 months, yes, but today, as I sat in my parked car and looked at the golden leaves canopying our street, I thought to myself — hasn’t it been enough now?

When do I wake up from this fever dream?

My chest heaves and my breath catches when I think about what our girl said to me two nights ago through her own tears, the simple and devastating truth.

“He’s gone forever. He’s never coming back.”

How can I live another year of this life? 

How can I live a lifetime of this life?

I imagine you sitting next to me, in the passenger seat. 

You ask me, “You ok?”

“No,” I say. 

I turn toward your empty spot, where you used to sit and tell stupid jokes and count how many times in a day you could make me laugh, and I remember what you said to me one year ago. 

I try to muster that same feeling, that steady assuredness of yours that made me feel so safe. 

I can’t. 

My sobs break apart my words and I ask you, aloud, wherever you are:

“Will I be?”