Oh, babe. It’s 3 am. Hugo is sleeping beside me on the couch, to the left of me, in your spot. It’s 3 am and I’m watching The Crown. The TV is always on. It keeps my thoughts at bay. Last Wednesday marked 8 weeks since you left, and the Google calendar for sleepover sign-ups has dried up. I have to learn how to spend the nights alone, sometime, and that time seems to be now. In this life I have to lead without you, most things are done out of necessity. I had to get out of bed to walk the dog. I had to leave our apartment to walk the dog. I had to return to the streets I searched the night you disappeared to walk the dog…Where would I even be without our dog? Maybe I’d still be in bed. Maybe I would have met you at the bottom of your bridge.
I don’t know why I find writing “to you” like this comforting. Where do I even think you are as I write this? Weeks ago, I would talk to you in the house, simply hoping that you were the energy around me. That felt acceptably scientific to me. I’ve always believed in the law of attraction and the universe as a force. Recently, however, I can’t even hold onto that hope. I have found from talking to other survivors that it is not unusual to begin projecting your lost loved one’s views as your own. And you didn’t believe in anything. Not a before or an after. You barely believed in the middle… so now where are you? In my head?
You are always in my head; on my mind.
The one thing I have learned about grief is that you can never depend on it. The way I feel about losing you right now will probably be different next week and the week after that. I hope the hope comes back.
I like what your mother said early on, that when we see you again, we will be able to say “I told you so.” And whether or not you are the cardinal we see in the tree, or you sent the cardinal, or some other version of the notion that you are still with us, I don’t think you get to decide what brings us comfort. You chose what you thought would bring comfort and none of us approve of that, either.
Just in case you can read this or hear it as a thought in my mind…I love you.