The hardest part about your death is that I didn’t get to say goodbye.
So sometimes, in order to make myself feel better, I pretend that you lived a much longer life.
We’re both older now as I sit with you in your final hours. We know that this is it, we can both feel it, but we aren’t afraid. You’ve obviously aged, but you still have the same handsome features and warm green eyes. We cry together, but we also smile and laugh and talk, too. Slowly, ever so slowly, you begin to sink into a deep sleep. Once you begin to snore, I kiss you softly on the head, squeeze your hand tight, tell you that I love you one more time, and leave for the night. Then, come morning, I discover that you’ve indeed found peace; quietly, gently, in your dreams, in your home, surrounded by love.
It’s a sad ending. But it’s a hopeful one, too.
However, it isn’t mine.
Because I didn’t get to say goodbye, or kiss your head, or squeeze your hand, or tell you that I love you one more time.
Your death was much sooner than it ever should’ve been.
I just hope to God that it didn’t hurt. That you were okay. And that if you knew, you weren’t afraid.
I don’t know.
Maybe it’s insignificant, or it makes me whiny to be complaining about such a silly thing when death’s inevitable.
But I’m learning that it’s okay to feel how I feel and that I’m allowed to make a big deal out of things that feel really big to me.
And this feels really big.
It’s the heaviest burden that I’ve ever been forced to carry.
