Like a Candle in a Hurricane...

                                                                                                                                              July 1^st, 2012

Dear Christopher,

I’m sitting here missing you as tears stream down my face. Today I read through our text messages and found our old facebook thread. It doesn’t even look like it could be real, all the love notes, it looks more like a fairy tale. How could I have been so lucky to have you in my life? Now it feels like I’m the most unlucky person in the world to have lost you. People say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Have these people ever known true love? Have they ever actually had to lose it? How can you have the greatest thing in the world and be okay with it leaving?  We didn’t love temporarily, we loved forever. You never hurt me or walked out, you were stolen from me.  Maybe it would have been better if you had ever been a jerk, maybe then I could forgive you for leaving me. But you never were. You were always there and always so wonderful. How can love like that die? How can you just disappear so suddenly with no goodbye?

When I had you, I felt like I was on top of the world. I was so in love. I was so incredibly happy. I was so excited for our future.  I couldn’t wait for you to come home so that we could really start our life together; spend the time together that we’d been missing. 2013 was the year that you were supposed to be home. We were going to take trips, go to weddings, sleep-in together and live the life we’d been waiting for. You were finally going to be here for one of my birthdays, what better gift is there? Instead my world came crashing down around me and I was left with the shattered pieces; just a glimpse of the life I was supposed to live but not enough for me to realize it.  

Time was all that I looked forward to, we were finally going to have time together. Now time feels like my enemy because the more time I have, the more it hurts because you are not here. We will never have that time.  October would have been our 3 year anniversary.  That number seems so small for the love that we had.  That number is too small. Our story is so much bigger than that.  We knew each other for almost 9 years, we were friends for 8, best friends for 7, head-over-heels for 6, destined to be married for 5, promised to each other for 4.  The truth is that you still gave me butterflies. While you were gone, I had this warm light in me, a voice that sang like a record stuck on repeat; it played over and over again saying “I am so in love with him. I am so lucky to have him. I miss him so much. I can’t wait for him to be home.” Those words made me so happy and filled me like a light. I knew that our love was stronger than ever and I was out-of-this-world happy. And then suddenly that light went out, that record stopped playing and my happiness flew away with the butterflies in my stomach. I’m empty now, sad and hurt, exhausted and empty.

Just a few months ago, I remember thinking that I could do anything with you. My house could burn to the ground, but it would be alright as long as you were there. Possessions didn’t mean a thing. Though few people would believe that of me because of the way you’d spoil me and I’d tease you about getting me beautiful things. The truth is, they meant so little to me in the grand scheme of things. Now I find myself terrified of my house burning down or someone breaking in and the only reason is that my life has been reduced to possessions. You aren’t here and all of my memories are contained in material objects; our pictures, your computers, the cards and letters we sent each other, your clothes and now the flag that draped your coffin, your ashes. It’s hot and yet at night I lock the windows and bolt the door, not for my own safety, I could care less about that, but because I can’t bear to lose any more of you.  

This isn’t supposed to be my life! My life was perfect! This is a nightmare! I don’t know who I am without you. You were the better person that I wanted to be! I loved you, I admired you, I was so proud of you! Now I wish that I’d discouraged your dreams; been selfish and kept you all to myself! I should have told the world that you were mine and they couldn’t have you! You would have forgiven me, our love was big enough for that. This deployment wasn’t even your dream and I let you leave and embark on another man’s dreams.  I should have stopped you.  The irony is that I made you wear sunblock so that you wouldn’t get cancer, I wouldn’t let you have a motorcycle for fear that you’d get hurt, I hounded you about getting injuries checked so that you’d be healthy, but I let you go to do the most dangerous job in the world. Who am I?

I always told you that I needed you to come home but I never told you how I’d disintegrate without you. You wouldn’t want me like this.  I thought I was being strong, holding back my anxiety and not talking about the ‘what ifs’ with you.   I didn’t want you to worry about me. Did you think that I didn’t care?  I never thought that you might not come home. Any time the thought crossed my mind I brushed it off.  We weren’t allowed to break promises in our house. It was a rule. You promised that you would come home safe to me. You promised that we would grow old together. You promised that you would always take care of me.

I went from living to surviving. What a world of difference between the two…