Comfortably Numb

16 weeks.

16 weeks without you, without your smile, your laugh, your goodnight kisses, your "hi there" when you would call or come in the door.

16 weeks since I stepped into that house knowing it was my first time stepping in without you and that when I had left it was the last time I would see you.

That sidewalk outside of the airport.

Kisses.

"See you soon. I love you."

Paris-bound.

Not knowing how the last time really is the last time but we cannot have a concept of that when living in the now, can we?

We should have been getting back from Golden Sands this week.

Packing the bikes on the back of the car and laughing our whole way with Colton as he told us, "There are no rules in Marystown!"

5 nights in that small, stuffy cabin but there was nothing else on this earth more perfect than waking up there and heading to the beach with you both and spending the day in the sun and the water with wonderful, fun people.

I'm on autopilot now.

Work is insanely busy.

Stanley is here.

This house.

I joked to a friend that I feel like Noah from "The Notebook" with my plans for this house, stripping it and painting, rebuilding, buying artwork, making it ours in the hope you would come back like Noah did for Allie.

But you can't come back.

You said we needed to rid ourselves of the old artwork because it had been yours without me and now it was time to buy new, our artwork for our house.

Yet I still have it all.

Remnants of Christmas paper still taped to the back of the aluminum artwork that hung in the living room from when we wrapped it like a present, with a shiny silver bow, to decorate for Colton.

You had said you had never really loved Christmas.

But you did now and wanted to make it special.

Every Christmas with you was special and I dread the first one without you.

Our Christmas tree with ornaments from Fogo and Jamaica but the Eiffel Tower one from Paris will never make it there because it is sitting on your grave.

I dread everything without you.

Stef and Ryan are home and we should be heading out to stay with mom and dad as mom recovers from surgery, you helping dad fix the bird houses and yard, meeting Ryan and Stef for the first time like he had planned.

But I'll go alone now.

Well, not alone - Stanley is coming.

Your mom looked at my tattoos this week and said, "Don't put him all over you."

But you ARE all over me.

You are all over me without ink, without hours in that studio.

You are all over me and all through me, in every day and second, in everything I do.

Medicated autopilot.

I feel like someone standing outside my body, looking at this shell and propelling it forward to do tasks I have to do.

I forget what okay feels like and I forget what happiness feels like.

Now I just am.

When two RNC cruisers parked outside my yard last night I went back to those long hours waiting for one to show up and how it felt when it did, the sergeant coming through the door and the way her face dropped as she sat at the table, our table.

"Is he gone?"

She did not speak but her eyes - her eyes told me and us that you were.

And that was a hell nothing in this world could have prepared me for.

16 weeks.

Medications, broken sleep, paint colours and new appliances.

And you should be here.

Sometimes I go to my car and I scream as loud as I can and I scream about how unfair all of this is and how beautiful you were.

And then most times I sit and exist.

Blankly.

I wonder where I should put your Andy Worhol banana that sat so lovingly in the corner of the kitchen counter.

I wonder where I'll put our Sailor Danny prints you mistakenly ordered on paper instead of canvas and told me I was never allowed to let you order important things ever again.

I wonder where I'll put our "Brad & Dwan, Jamaica 2022" carving you asked me to pick and we stood holding hands as the rastafarian carved it by hand.

I wonder where I'll put my love for you.

I feel so medicated that I am mechanical, moving through motions and not knowing how to live this life without you.

In this house that your best friend's grandfather built that has the grey siding and black trim I always said I liked and you said it was beautiful but worried it would fade.

If there is anything I have learned from this hell on earth is that nothing fades.

The love I have for you certainly will not fade.

And I just wish, in some way, we had known and I could have told you everything you mean to me and how deeply I love you.

But we never really know when the last day may be.

And so, I exist.

I have become

Comfortably numb.