Five and Counting

I spend my few grieving days being frustrated because it’s the only thing that masks my pain. When I’m alone and your memory haunts me, that’s when the pain is released and every inch of my face is soaked in the tears that won’t ever seem to fade away. To say losing you hurts like it happened today is how I feel but the reality is, it’s been five years since you went away. 

The way it’s changed my life is hard to put into words, and the magnitude of my stress now is suffocating and only wants to be understood by you. But in those five years I’ve learned to find you in small moments in life, sometimes when I need you the most and sometimes when I’m least expecting it. I’ve learned to spend more of my time thinking about the good than the bad, I rely on photos to pull me back into each moment before you were gone. 

But today and tomorrow are days that haunt me. I won’t ever be able to forget that five years ago I got that single life defining phone call. I won’t ever be able to forget how I had to tell others, how I had to break others while putting my heartache on hold, how I had to be the mindful one and talk to the coroner. I won’t forget how I thought I’d be able to deal but the following day was when the bottom of my universe fell out; how I free floated in a self destructing year because the loss of you was and still is unbearable. Today I think about the frustrations, I think about the unspoken words, I think about the many times I begged God in many moments to just give you back, until I picked up your ashes. Our last car ride together was our weirdest yet, I never in a million years thought you'd be ash in a box riding shotgun.
My mind is riddled with those last tears I watched fall from my face as I leaned over you in the casket. I watched each of them soak into your plaid shirt before someone had to pull me away, because I wasn’t ever going to be able to let you go on my own. I don’t know how we got to five years. I don’t know how the rest of them will go. I do however hope that through it all, you’re still looking out because my life without you so very often just feels lost.

We had a deal, we had our many talks about death, but this was never one of the cards we discussed. I will forever love you, I will forever be working on forgiving myself and trying to not feel guilty, and I will forever speak of you because my life isn't my life without you in it.