It’s crazy how at certain times the tears just fall. I can live life, think of him (every day), and keep on keeping on.
Then days like today the tears just fall. And as they do I realize that it still hurts the same as it did every year prior. I do not miss him any less. I don’t think I ever will.
It’s just crazy to me that now it’s a somewhat comforting thing.
I think we are so afraid that we are going to forget or that they will be forgotten. And as time goes on the time between tears gradually gets longer and longer. The routines of day to day life become the focus. The days are long but the years are short. And suddenly it’s been almost 6 years since I held his hand. It feels so far away. Like another life all together. I have to remind myself of the life I had before that looks so different from the life I have now. And I get scared that I’m going to leave him behind because each year it seems details become a little less vivid.
Of course I know that I will never forget him, and I also know that it wouldn’t be healthy to try to carry all of him with me. But there are times I have to search my mind to remember something - like what size and brand of jeans he wore, and that hurts.
The reality is that time takes things from us. And it wouldn’t be a healthy life if I spent all my energy trying to carry the past with me, and missing out on what the present needs from me. And yet, even when we can rationalize these thoughts - It. Doesn’t. Make. Them. Hurt. Less.
But it does give the feelings space to be what they are. I work hard not to dismiss them, and just let them be felt. And it never ceases to surprise me how quickly and intensely the tears come when I sit in reflection on days like today.
I’m in a place in life where I can embrace these moments, not run from them. It brings me a strange comfort to see how my soul remembers so perfectly. Because love does not die. And though I can live my life without Brandon, my life will never be without him.
