Mortality in 2023

My own mortality has been heavily on my mind since you left. Not because I have any plans to join you, though it would seem so easy, wouldn’t it? But because of the suddenness of it all.

You were warm and asleep beside me and then you were cold and dead beside me. There was no in between to say goodbye. To say the things I wanted to say to make sure you knew, to make sure you knew that I fucking love you more than the air in my lungs.

It’s like I’m stuck there now. Between the warmth of you and the reality that you’re gone. It’s real to everyone else, but not to me. Not to me.

I had “the talk” with Emily .. about my wishes. I want to be cremated. I want a party, not a funeral. Not a sobbing snotting mess of sorrow but a rager of a party. Light the blunts. Play the music loud. Send me off with as much noise as I make while I’m here.

I told her she & her brothers could keep divisions of me, but at least a portion of my ashes I want mixed with yours and spread over Okanagan Lake. I never felt so home the way I did there. We planned our future there. Our dreams.

We should have been there next week on vacation - for your first visit, to introduce you to all my hearts there. To dip your toes in my lake. I want to spend eternity there with you … like we planned.

Why am I here alone?

Why do my fingers trace the name on your urn instead of the smile lines of your face?

The pain is creeping back these last two days. Still not enough for the morphine though. The week in hospital did nothing for me other than thrust my anxiety through the roof. On the bright side I guess, if CT scans and xrays and ultrasounds were all clear then .. it’s grief .. manifesting physically.

It’s so fucked up.

Every morning I tell myself that today will be the day that I will go for a walk. Even the one block to the lake. Just one block. But then .. its suddenly 9pm and … maybe tomorrow.

The sweetest friend of mine from my high school days sent me a Walmart grocery delivery last week. I can’t function financially to shop for myself but I also haven’t been able to function in the kitchen. She knew that, and sent me shit that I didn’t have to think about - instant or frozen, just something to sustain myself. This woman’s 3y/o is fighting cancer for the second time and she sent me a care package and groceries. Grief humbles you.

I just .. can’t. I can’t eat. I didn’t eat in the hospital (granted, even if I had been hungry I wouldn’t have eaten that slop). Idk how much weight I’ve lost but my ring is too loose and it fit perfectly a month ago when I bought it. It keeps slipping sideways now and the stone rubs the side of my pinky :(

I miss you. God do I miss you. I keep thinking - okay, jokes over now, you can come back.

But you’re not coming back, are you?