Dear Babe,
On the day that we died, I carried home two bags of cotton
candy for you. One pink, one blue. I knew your sweet tooth would have a hard
time making a decision and we would spend an absurd amount of time debating the
merits of both. I could have decided for you – brought you home only one color –
but I looked forward to the back and forth that would follow. The laughing, the
rambling reasons both for and against each color, the eventual victory of one
color over the other. Those were the moments I lived for.
We both died that night, however, and those hopeful bags of
spun sugar were forgotten about; the pink vs. blue debate never made it past my
imagination. You were 39 and I was 31 when we died – you physically, and me in
every single other way. The bags of dessert on the counter were witness to the
beginning of my destruction. Surely, they must have overheard the call that there had been an accident. An accident?
What a very neat and tidy word for an implosion of two lives, for the twisted
wreckage that became of every hope and dream.
I was never one to pray before. You knew that. On the ride
to the hospital, I ticked off a list in my head of all of the deities that
would perhaps listen to a dying woman grasping at straws. There were none.
Instead I prayed to you. Please don’t
leave me. Please hold on. Please wait for me. I love you. I love you. I love
you. They wouldn’t tell us anything over the phone but I knew it wasn’t
good. In fact, I felt the same rock of sureness in my gut that I felt the very
first time I looked into your eyes. How could I argue with that? That was the
first crack. It started in my gut and broke off into a million tiny rivers of
ice throughout my body. We are not going
to make it through this night, I whispered to you over the miles. I love you. I love you. I love you.
The hospital was a blur. It still is. I thank my body daily
for the grace and peace of not knowing everything that transpired. But I
remember seeing you when you were still in this world. Hooked up to so many
machines but still just so handsome. My husband. My lover. My person. You
looked so small with all of those people rushing around us but those lips were
still so red. Our lives came singing back to me then, a medley of every look,
word, fight, dance, promise, and hope that had ever come between us. I swear I
felt you beside me. I swear you held my hand. I swear you knew it was your job
to carry us both out of the lives that we had known and lead us into the
darkness of the unknown – me left on this earth, and you on your way to
another. I swear I heard your voice in my ear. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Not too soon after, you were gone from my world as quickly
as you had been brought into it over ten years before. The ice rivers
threatened to consume me. They spread throughout my body, leaving it cold where
once there was heat and life. The girl made of glass. I waited throughout the
weeks for the pebble that would shatter me into millions of pieces. It almost
became a game, guessing when my demise would be completed, when I would be
relegated to nothing more than a shell.
I screamed on the floor for hours, defying any higher power.
A crack through my brain.
I held your clothes in my arms, curling myself into a corner
of your closet. A crack through my heart.
I listened to your voicemails over and over and over again. A crack through my ear.
I beat my fists against our bedroom door until there were
splinters and blood but you were not back here with me. A crack through my hands.
I waited for the cracks to fill with blackness and lead me
away. I didn’t want to be me in a world where you were no longer you. I woke up
screaming. I woke up crying. I woke up afraid that we would never find our way
together again, that Amanda and Tom was only a short song that had been laid to
rest in the twist of metal and debris on the highway. But as much as I wanted
those cracks to expand until I was put out of my misery, I kept hearing your
voice. I love you. I love you. I love
you.
The crack in my brain became filled with your logic. What we had was too powerful to dissipate in
the air.
The crack running through my heart ran red again envisioning
our wedding day. Neither one of us is
perfect but we love each other perfectly.
The crack in my ear began to sing the laughter in your
voice. Good morning, Mrs. Valentine. Good
morning, Mr. Valentine.
The crack through my hands toughened into calluses and gave
me the strength to pick myself up and forge ahead. You can do this on your own. I will never be far away.
On the day that we died, I was also reborn. Into something
more than just me, into something more than just you. I was reborn into a woman
who is the best of me, and the best of you. A woman who is the best of us. And
that is how I have made it throughout this year. Even on the days when I didn’t
think I would survive. On the days I didn’t want to. Through the fear, and anger,
and threatening skies. Your love courses through me and somehow I am strong.
The world is funny like that.
I love you. I love
you. I love you.
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