does the sun cover the moon where you are?
you haven’t visited in a few nights. that’s okay — i was honored you did at all. although i’m not even sure it really was you. maybe it was my own desperate, bereaved conjuration. maybe i managed to claw my way to where you are. maybe it was you taking pity, and now you’ve moved on to other dreams because i’ve finally been able to grieve you with other people. but i want to talk to you, not just about you. i want you to stay in the present tense.
there is shrapnel of you everywhere. you gave me this mug, this jacket, the heels i’ll wear to your memorial. but the best gifts you gave are the ones i can’t touch. like how you taught me to trim flowers so they’ll last longer, and now my apartment is always in bloom. i know i’ve thanked you for that before, but i want to again. i wonder if you can see the beautiful red gerbera i’ve spent hours admiring this week, bending the pliant stalk, thumbing its layers of petals like a flipbook. when you were in between, i would try to send you images of flowers and stars over skylines and sunlight sparkling on water. i wish i’d had this flower then.
it feels so strange to not know where you are. it’s been a while, but there was a time when we knew where the other was at every second of the day, and the answer was usually together. you remain the most-ever contacted person in my phone, which still suggests i text you, call you, look at this photo of you from six years ago or six months ago or six weeks ago — yes, please; show me all of it, everything i remember and everything i don’t, everything i took for granted. remind me of all the small things that circled the heart of it: that people could come to you feeling lonely and lost, and leave feeling loved. and i don't know why else we're here, if not to do that for each other as much as we can.
today i watched the eclipse among a throng of our former coworkers. the cast and crew of the broadway show next door fled their theatre to join us. people lined up on all the fire escapes. a bunch of children shedding the skins of adulthood, coming together to stare directly into the sun. the giddiness is so special i forget what has happened.
this will be one of my favorite memories in new york, i decide. and you are in so many of those. every day i’ve lived here i’ve known you. maybe that’s why i turn to talk to you as if you’re right beside me, and am startled to find you’re not there. instinctively, i search for you among the crowd before i remember. the nauseating wave of grief is so strong; it sweeps the feeling from my legs and drowns my hollow chest. i am surrounded by people i only know because of you, and you are not with us. the equation of our company makes no sense without you. you are here — i felt you; i just turned to find you — but we can’t see you or hug you or hear you laugh. the nausea retreats but the tears don’t. at least i have these stupid fucking glasses.
if you have to leave, you deserve to know the totality of the loss. it’s immeasurable, incomprehensible, some Lovecraftian nightmare that, if confronted straight on, will drive us mad. no one can behold it all at once. i wish you could feel your own absence. even before, any room you left would grow colder and quieter. people would instantly miss you. now you’ve left a chasm. when i encounter those who loved you too, it stretches between us, impossibly vast. our shared love for you is the bridge that lets us cross. we are all looking for you, but you’ve gone someplace we can’t. you are beloved, and our heartbreak is proportional. it requires a comfort only you can give. we are meager understudies left to perform your role for one other. the hole is enormous; it is world-breaking. of course earthquakes and eclipses should happen in your wake.
as the pseudo-darkness settles over the city, there are cheers, followed by a moment where it gets very quiet. i wonder if we are all thinking the same thing, this crowd of friends and strangers, gazing up into the sky, searching for what we cannot see.
<3<3<3
A beautiful tribute. Your love shines through the grief. Thank you for sharing.