Dead

I can’t seem to get the words down.

I slept holding the bag of ashes that I was given. Macabre, but it made me feel better. Even for a moment. And I am doing everything I can to find those moments.

We went through your things yesterday and as I clutched the ashes, I sobbed. I watched as our children (adult children) pulled clothing out and asked who wanted what. Our youngest held me as I sobbed and I felt bad that I wasn’t able to be stoic for him. But that exercise was the final nail in the coffin for lack of a better phrase:  You are dead. You aren’t coming back. I will never touch your face again. I will never hear your laugh again. I will never hold your hand again. Or tell you I love you. Or help you reason out the paranoia that sometimes attacked you. All these things and a thousand more I will never do again. We will never do again. Because you are dead.

And I can’t reason it out. I feel like Anya in Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Buffy’s mom died. I can’t reason out why you just wouldn’t get back in your body. And come back to us. So we can bring to fruition all the plans that we all had for you. And instead I’m clutching your ashes. Crying tears that I keep hoping will stop. Going from numb to all the feelings to disassociation back to numb. And I just want to keep screaming “why”. Why are you gone? Why couldn’t Death find someone else? Why did it have to be you? Why did you leave us?

I sit here, clutching a bag of ashes trying to figure out how to get them to tell me “I love you” back. Trying to figure out how to move on when all of this feels like a dream. A horrible nightmare that I will wake up from, call you, cry at you, and tell you the things I need to say. But instead, I hold tight onto this small bag of ashes.