Who I am is a presence of energy pulsing outward. Who I am not is negative space. A vacuum.
I miss him. I can’t bring myself to remove the photo of him which hangs on the wall in my bedroom at home. It’s a candid black and white photo I shot of him while we were visiting Ogunquit; he’s lounging in an Adirondack chair, hands behind his head, relaxed, happy, smiling at me. Content.
Just under him is his favorite photo of me, a candid he literally shot from his hip, my head is down, smiling in the light of late afternoon.
This morning, my tearful/fearful mother began asking/accusing me “Do you just feel no empathy for Joe?” “You seem like you’re so okay, your energy is bright and happy.” “You’re acting like you’re over it, not even affected a little bit.”
Me, not having words to explain that this is how I cope. Mom, coming back with another question/judgement that my energy seems “manic”. Me, assuring her that my energy is very much part of my coping mechanism to deal with just how acutely I feel the impact of my decision on everyone.
Joe’s loss of me, his loss of my family, the trauma of the abrupt and impersonal executive decision I made, the pain of the words I (had?) to say.
I feel the loss in my family and friends. I feel the loss when a joke or gift or story surfaces and where it was a light and common occurrence now empty space swirls and I feel that ache again, the ghost pain of my limb and body that was an us.
I miss him. And for my mom, who loves him like a son-in-law, I feel her grief. I feel this all so acutely and I get it. I know I look like the cold-hearted bitch girl who breaks a heart and leaves without consideration for anyone but herself.
I’m the girl who overlooks this good man’s tender care and dedicated love of me, through trauma and heartache, hospitalizations, suicide attempts, PTSD and sexual assault, violent flashbacks, refusal of food, inability to sleep, serious bodily injury… he was always there. And I left him with a casual disregard for the gift of his love and care. Betrayal, in spades.
Would it be consolation to you if that were true? Proof positive that this was the right decision? I could reconcile myself to being hated or condemned if it meant your pain might decrease by focusing it on me and my mistakes.
I am so sorry. My dear Joseph, my dear family, Joseph’s family, I am so sorry. I am so intensely imperfect and in the rush of certainty around my decision I lost the human element which can so easily escape me in duress. I know I made the right decision, but the ends do not justify the means. I lost sight.
No, it wasn’t respectful. No, it wasn’t empathetic, it wasn’t loving, it wasn’t tender, sorrowful, kind. It was not loving, it did not treat our relationship with the care it deserves. That you deserve.
It was not what you deserved and I am so sorry. I caused you pain; I caused them pain and so now my pain runs deep and throbbing like a river run over and swollen by glacier ice in its frenzied rush towards Spring. I carry all of this. My own grief, and yours.
How could I possibly be without sorrow? Am I known to no one?
I am known to myself and this is enough. How I wish I might take your pain and carry it for a time.
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
–Edna St. Vincent Millay
