To Marilyn: March 2, 2010

Hi Hon,

It’s been nearly a year since you left and sometimes I miss you terribly. I know you’re walking with Jesus now and no longer in constant pain – for that I give thanks. But I keep stumbling across little pieces of our life together and the returning memory of your loss shreds this fragile fabric of my life that I’m reweaving.

You still haunt me in my quiet moments, moments you would fill with your voice: talking, laughing, singing. I miss hearing you snore at night. When your favorite of our two cats comes to stand on my chest in the night I can see in her eyes she misses you. And I can’t do a damn thing about it. That knowledge tears open the wound in my heart and I lay there in the dark weeping like a child, futilely wishing I could turn back the hands of time.

I’ve found someone new to love, who loves me as well – and who also lost her first love suddenly. I know you wanted me to go on and be happy in the remainder of my life and I’m trying to honor that. She knows all about you – I think you even met her a couple of times because we used to shop where she worked – that’s how I met her.

I love you baby. I feel so bad I couldn’t save you. I feel bad that you went through chemo, even though we’d talked about it and you swore you wouldn’t – so I know you did it for me. And worst of all, after all the pain, the injections, the scans and feeling miserable it came to naught. Most of all that hurts the worst – that you almost made it back but then were snatched away. The hope that proved false was such a blow to you. And yet you faced the end with courage and dignity. You made all your arrangements quietly, not telling me the awful truth because you knew it would shatter me.

I want you to know that our dear friends all rallied to help me, God bless them every single one. They were like lighthouses on the shore, guiding me away from the rocks and showing me the way back to some semblance of a life.

They knew what losing you meant to me and they’ve all been incredibly supportive of my new partner so that we’re hopeful life will return to some kind of normalcy.

So I keep walking across the ice, trying to avoid the cracks that hurl me into the icy water and leave me gasping in pain.

I’m sure you’re looking down at me just now and I hope  you’re proud of me.

I miss you baby.