41.

This is 41.

There are no lyrics, no songs to relate to, no poetic muses to help carry along these words.

This is 41.

And it all feels so numb.

This time last year, actually the day before, you told me how you would make sure 40 was my best year yet, as we planned a sunny vacation in Jamaica, and you wanted to celebrate.

I had told you if I came home to one more person in the house on that day other than you I was moving out.

And we laughed.

I have never done well with birthdays.

And you obliged, nothing more than dinner from my favourite restaurant, hugs, kisses and the promise that you would do everything in your power to make 40 the best yet.

But the universe had other ideas.

You tried.

It succeeded.

41.

I keep thinking how I am now 41, almost the age you were and will forever be, and I do not know how to process that.

I always joked that I was forever younger but now I will not be.

You are forever 42.

And now I am 41, in the house that is mine but not the house that was supposed to be ours.

41 held so much promise that was not to be.

Birthday wishes roll in and I cannot respond.

I ran today.

My second run since you died.

I know you would be proud and I had to. I had to drag myself out after 12 hours of sleep.

Trips on the road for work take so much more recovery now that you are not there to come home to.

I look at the changes since 40.

Dinner, work, fancy dinners, sunny vacations in Jamaica, nights at home, COVID, promise, offers on our house, your death.

And it takes my breath away more than the smoking habit I picked up the day that you died.

"What do you need?" my best friend asked.

"Cigarettes," I had answered. "Any cigarettes."

And I smoke one after another still looking for the peace or something that helps alleviate the concrete that sits on my chest every day.

I look around this house, the house I had to buy, not the house we were buying.

Not the yellow house on Wells Crescent but this house on Third Street, the one you and your friends grew up in but I did not even know that until later.

The one that holds your ghosts.

The house that has pictures of you but not you.

You should be here.

I have these dreams now.

They are recurring dreams and they will not go away.

Every night I dream of things that happen, of Stef coming home, of speeches and presentations, of weddings (sometimes our own) and you cannot be there.

I can call you but I cannot see you.

You cannot be there but you want to and I dial your number to hear you so sweetly say, "I'm sorry, sweetness, I can't come."

And it guts me.

But at the same time the me in the dream understands, though me who wakes in the empty bed does not and hopes that somehow it is your way of telling me you are watching, that you are proud, but you simply cannot be here because it is out of your control.

I miss you.

I miss you, I miss us, I miss our little family and how everything is so empty now.

Every day is simply a wake up, work, come home, sleep and make it to the next one.

And I wish I could offer something, anything, to the universe to get it all back.

But I cannot.

I wonder what we would all be doing now.

Hockey practice, walks in the neighbourhood, setting up his playroom, getting familiar with the new house, riding in your new car.

But it all came to a halt that night.

Everything ended.

Everything I knew ended.

And I wasn't ready for that.

So I have spent the last year trying to walk through this.

I have given it my all.

And while there are days I had wished I was not here to wake up and feel the pain I know I have to be here to feel and that I have a job to do to let the world know who you were and that you were here.

So I will continue.

Blindly.

I miss you.

I miss our little family and our future.

I know you sent Stanley.

You had told that medium you spoke to through your friend that you would communicate with me through an animal. He lets me know. 

And I thank you for that.

But I would give all of this up to be able to go back to nights in your arms.

This is 41.

In a week and a bit you would have been 43.

And I will never understand a world that took that from you, from us, and made you forever 42.

I'm so tired.

But I will carry on.

I will do good in your name and I will push as hard as I possibly can.

That is all I can do.

And thank you, my love.

You could not overpower the universe and make 40 my best year yet.

But you made 37 until then the most beautiful years imaginable.

Time Will Tell

"I've got blood all over my hands,
In my eyes,
On the strings.

It's pouring out all over all my favorite things..."

Happy new year.

Though there are few things to be happy about and the slightest tinge of joy brings the guilt of being here while you are not.

Not given the chance.

Stolen.

Yet I get to be here.

I get to enter this new year, this new year that had so much promise and the one that we had so many plans for.

Without you.

I get to be here.

Everyone gets to be here.

Except you.

Last new year's eve we ordered takeout, sat and laughed, watched Schitt's Creek and lamented how neither of us really liked going out much, how a glass of wine and those burgers from Bernie's were better than any other celebration.

Then we laughed, pointed at Spillar's Cove on the NTV scroll, kissed at the moment of midnight and said this year was going to be our year.

How there would be so many big things this year.

Yet there was only one big thing.

"My guilty heart is beating faster,
Every time I try to sing.
It seizes up and then my lungs begin to sting.

Only time will tell..."

I'm bad at this without you.

I feel like a shell, something that has been hollowed out that keeps existing and moving but not feeling.

But you made me feel so much.

This was to be our year and the day you dropped me at the airport the look in your eyes showed so much promise.

Then you sent me our yellow house on Nelder and said you couldn't wait for me to come home so we could make that offer.

So I changed my flight.

"Is it written all over my face?
Should I even feel ashamed?
Or is it that early thirties thing, where some guys just go insane?"

Not early thirties but 40.

"I'm going to make sure 40 is your best year yet," you had exclaimed when I lamented how I did not do well with birthdays and never felt accomplished or comfortable enough to celebrate them like milestones, rather than the stark reminders they were.

My best year yet.

A living hell we could not have ever imagined or written if we had tried.

"And the doctors give us lithium, but we're never quite the same,
Do we retreat to younger years to stop the pain?

Well, only time will tell..."

There is no retreating.

"Do you take all of those pills?" my mother asked last night.

Yes.

Three antidepressants, a muscle relaxer, a nerve blocker and a sleeping pill.

To exist.

And these are days and nights now.

"You say there's not a god?
Goddammit I could use a little faith to keep from crawling right out of my skin..."

I am sick of hearing that all of this was "God's plan."

What god could ever allow you to be stolen from this world, all of the good you did and still wanted to do to be taken.

That void.

Who you were.

What god allows that on his or her watch?

"I think it's adding up,
Staying up blowing tombstone powder with the broken hearted liars again..."

So many liars.

And I have had to build boundaries.

Sometimes growing courage for yourself means saying goodbye to those who feed on ensuring you are taken down.

Those who claimed to care, love and take care of me in your absence have often turned to have nothing but malice.

And I will never understand it.

"Oh I think I've had enough,
All my records feel like yearbook pictures,
There's fondness but I can't remember where,
Where I've been..."

Things are so cold now that I can't remember where.

Where I've been.

Who I've been.

Though I was the happiest and most contented I had ever been with myself.

Accepted.

Loved.

Then gone.

"So I'm sharpening my pen,
Shooting the ink into my skin..."

How fitting that my sleeve was finished on the mark of 9 months of you being stolen.

9 months.

How has it been 9 months when I didn't think I could last 9 days?

Those 9 days, these 9 months, have been a blur.

And I wake every morning in a stupor, amazed that another sunrise is creeping through the window and it is time to start again.

9 months.

The compass for the direction you were going to pick me up.

Our last time, though you were always there when the plane landed.

The pocket watch with the time you were taken.

The candle from your sleeve that you loved so much - reiterating that it indicated how precious time was.

The anchor because you were my anchor.

The "silver thorn on bloody rose" for every time you laughed when I played Don McClean's "Vincent" on repeat and rambled about the beauty of the lyrics.

The "Steve McQueen" lyrics - "'Cause this life is only chains, it's nothing like the colours in my dreams..." that hit a bit harder these days.

Finished.

But nothing is truly finished, I guess.

I need to push forward, learn to live around it, and carry you with me.

And I will.

I will continue to try and fill the void left in the community by your unnecessary exit.

And until my dying day I will try and channel your good and your drive to do what I can.

It can all be taken in an instant, can't it?

So I will take you and who you were with me to drive everything I do this year.

Everything.

In your name.

There is nothing else I can do.

"Baby, here's where we begin..."