Broken in Two

Michelle, my love, my soulmate, my true love. When you were diagnosed with cancer it broke us. We cried and vowed we would do everything we could to come out ahead in the end. Here I sit almost 2 years later, alone at our kitchen table that you stained and varnished, looking at the garden that you planted for the birds that I watch every day and I think “You are still here.” I think back to the time of diagnosis and think of how this time was a new time for us. A new life. I was lucky to live not 1 life but 2 lives with my soulmate. I was able to show my love for you by taking care of you. It started out by taking you to appointments and making you 3 meals a day. Life was almost normal except we both knew it wasn’t. Slowly time went on and things started to deteriorate. Eventually I was lifting you in and out of bed and to and from the toilet. The bedside commode was the only toilet we used because it was easier and more convenient. Our love continued to grow as your health faded. Soon you could no longer speak words to me. Your smile still lit the room when you entered but you could only say one or 2 words. I was the lucky one to hear them from your sweet lips. The days came when your bed was where you wanted to stay and getting up was not an option for you. I read Grimm’s fairy tales to you, and we held hands. Your smirk told me you were happy and relaxed. Then the morning came that my heart was broken. I saw you drift from me forever. This heart of mine that was so filled with our love for so many years now, was broken in two. I cry. I mourn. I lament my loss. Hours drag on. Time is standing still without you. 24 hours in a day but a day is an eternity without you. One day passes and I think, it’s been just one day? I have the rest of my life to live like this and it’s been just one day. The hours continue like this for days until the hours finally turn into days. I look back and think wow, 3 days ago she was here. On one hand it seems like it has been a very long time but on the other hand it seems like a few hours. Days turn into weeks eventually and I continue to mourn. It seems to not be getting any better. I am lonely and lost. I go to bed alone and wake up alone. There is nobody to cook for, so I don’t eat. Sleep is something that I get early in the night, 5 hours is normal.

Weeks soon are months, and I am finding a new normal. I think about my life with Michelle all the time, her memories surround me. My heart was once swollen, bursting with my love for my ladybug. When she was taken from me my swollen heart broke. When my heart broke, a new ventricle opened. Now, this empty ventricle, needs filling. 

I have questions for you Michelle, what do you think? You know me better than anyone in the world. You told my daughter that you thought I would need someone to take care of me. How long is too long and how short is too short? Who is in charge of the grieving calendar? Who tells us when to grieve and when not to grieve? 

There will never be another like you my sweet ladybug. You are one of a kind and nothing will ever replace you in my heart. I don’t want to replace you. I am not looking to have someone fill your role or fill your shoes, they are way too big and difficult to fill. Impossible if I must say.

I must though, move on. Find a new impossible. Find a new set of shoes. Open a new ventricle to my ever-beating heart. My love for you goes on forever babe. This love will never fade. Whether I can or cannot share it with someone, you will always be with me when I am with them.

I love you forever. Love, Brian