Two years
Two years. Two years he’s been gone, although 2 years ago today, I still thought he was busy and hadn’t had time to e-mail me. I guess that was true, in its way. I try not to think about these 3 days in 2006 because it never fails to wreck me. The last sign I had of him alive on this earth was a time stamp on my site meter on Saturday, July 15, 2006; he’d visited my blog that morning. I hadn’t really thought of it until just now, but one of the last things he did on this earth was to see what I had to say that day.
He really did love me. And I really love him.
I have been pensive, but not really pained, in these days leading up to this sad milestone. I’m not sure if that’s the entire reality, or if I’m insulating myself on a subconscious level from going there. There seems to be some of that going on, too. I have shed a few tears on more than a few occasions in recent days. I don’t know if there’s a meltdown in the offing or not. Qué será, será. I know that the future is not mine to see.
I don’t know where the last 2 years went. I really don’t. I can’t believe a full 731 days have passed without our talking, when we talked multiple times every day. Before, two years seemed like a huge amount of time; now, time is largely meaningless to me, as I’ve lived for myself the truth of its irrelevance. Maybe that’s why I find it so hard to wrap my mind around it.
It no longer seems like yesterday that he passed, or that I last talked to him. It feels like two weeks since I last talked to him. That may seem strange, but there’s a distance there now. Not a great distance, but a distance nonetheless.
It doesn’t seem like two years, though, certainly. I lost that first year entirely. It is a blur of half-remembered pain, and a zombie existence of going through the motions, trying to remember how to behave like a "normal" person, and failing a great deal of the time.
The first year was largely about the loss of us, jointly and separately—what he had lost by dying, what he was missing out on, not the least of which was me showering him with love, the unfairness of his dying just when life was looking up for him again. And of course, it was about my outrage and pain at his sudden and irrevocable absence, the pain of our life-in-progress being forcibly and cruelly interrupted. It was about the loss of myself, and those things that only he brought to my life, and about the hurt and anger inherent in having to create a new life I never wanted.
The second year has been more about my journey—what I’ve lost, what I miss, how I’m coping, my progress and process—my metamorphosis from zombie to myself, my new self. I find it’s a lot like the old Coke/new Coke thing; very similar, but the new one just doesn’t taste as good. Only no one’s going to make "TGLB Classic" for me to go back to. It’s just not an option.
Looking back, I can see these trends, though I could not at the time. As I enter the third year, I have to wonder what that will bring in terms of change and healing. I don’t even bother to guess. I have given up all pretension to seeing the future. And that’s just as well. Sometimes, the future brings things you don’t want to know about. I wonder, more often than I’d like to, who will be taken from me next. I didn’t used to think that way.
I am calm, because I don’t know what else can be done at this point, what else can be said. I miss him. Plain and simple. I miss him so much, every single day of my life. I think of him dozens of times a day for different reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all.
I still talk to him every day; he just doesn’t talk back. It’s hardly satisfactory, but you take what you can get. I know he hears me. I would give so much to just talk WITH him, though. To hold him. To be free of this damnable separation that may only be apparent, but functions as a brick wall between us regardless.
What have I learned in two years?
I’ve learned that you can survive pain so bad that it was unimaginable prior to the experience thereof, and that you can learn to laugh, love, and live again. The resilience of the human spirit is astonishing to me. While I’m not where I would wish to be, I am amazed I’ve managed to come this far; I never dreamed it possible in those early days.
I’ve learned that there is more than just this life, and more than the reality we take in with our five senses. The conviction that he lives on, that I will live on, that all of us continue eternally, has saved my life and my sanity even if it can’t always save my mood.
I have learned that there is a deeper intimacy that can blossom from death between the one who leaves and the one who is left behind. I am more honest with him about everything now than I was when he was alive. I do not hide my weakness, my insecurity, my confusion, my sadness from him anymore. I ask all the questions I was afraid to ask. I finish the business I was too afraid to bring up when he was alive, for fear it was petty, lame, or silly. I put it all out there, assuming he has greater understanding and perspective now, free as he is of all those things we hide, and that he will not love me any less for it.
I’ve learned that love is all that matters, and love is unconquerable. It can only be surrendered. While death can devastate everything else, love will still be standing when the smoke clears. I’ve learned that love is the only certain thing; everything else is mutable.
Those are probably the biggest lessons. There have been others as well, many of which I’m still chewing on and may well be for the duration. Like, how does one reconcile the feeling of separateness from others with the belief that there is no separation in reality? How does one reconcile the greater compassion that comes out of loss with the reality that one doesn’t want to waste her time on people who insist on being assholes? How much is fair to expect of ourselves? I suspect saintliness is not required, but what’s code on this? What’s the RDA of kindness, understanding, and forgiveness in the reality of a relative existence filled with people who seem lacking in all three?
I’m not sure what to think, having arrived at this milestone. Things are very different than two years ago, and different than last year. But one thing is insistently the same, and that is that he’s not here. As Annie said in a comment the other day, that doesn’t change, nor will it. He is not coming back to this life. He’s just not. What more can I think or say about it? As long as I live, I will be living without him, except for in spirit. I cannot imagine a time when I won’t hate that fact. But there is no changing it. And sometimes, it makes me want to scream until I have no voice left.
I’m doing the best I can. Maybe some day down the line my "best" will be better than this; I don’t know.
On the way to the chiropractor yesterday, a Duran Duran song came on the radio in the rental I’m using while my car is in the shop. Duran Duran has been my favorite band for 25 years. This song is 15 years old now and gets very little airplay. It was written by Simon Le Bon, who was grieving for a friend of his who died. But today, it came to me as a message for me, personally as I face this milestone. As I try to make my way to the ordinary world, I will learn to survive. One breath, one step at a time…same as I’ve been doing for two years.
I love you, Sweetheart. I’m trying.
Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can’t escape the ghost of you
What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away
But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Passion or coincidence
Once prompted you to say
"Pride will tear us both apart"
Well now pride’s gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart
What is happening to me?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away
But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrow at all
And I don’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Every one
Is my world
Any one
Is my world
Any one
Is my world
Every one
Is my world