You tell people it was a drunk driving accident. This is a crucial juncture for the lion-hearted. Those who are truly brave enough to have entered this line of questioning must now decide whether or not they have enough chutzpah to hold your gaze, but thus far, everyone has flinched, no matter how minutely. So you’ve learned that this admission is guaranteed to be met with a bouquet of the “I’m so sorry to hear that” and “I can’t even imagine”. There’s no easy way to announce how someone’s left this mortal plane, but elements of tragedy make the conversations unbearable. They parrot one another, each a mirrored image of the last, albeit slightly distorted and opaque. God forbid they learn that you were less than a week away from proposing. You go from shouldering your own grief to acting as a midwife for those who require assistance to give birth to their own sorrowful reactions.
You were planning a trip together, just the two of you. A vacation was long overdue, and between the castle-hopping, food tours, and museums, you were looking forward to fourteen days of uninterrupted bliss. Then came the accident. You weren’t there when it happened, but you swear that you can hear the shriek or metal on metal when you lie awake at night. The scent of gasoline and iron fills the air as an unholy offering, and seems to be all that you can breathe at times. Initially, people were plenty understanding. Such is the magical power of death. There’s no wand to be waved, and yet, the simple mention of your predicament has made a number of otherwise complex situations incredibly easy. Friends were kind when you’ve backed out of plans. Your landlord was gracious when the rent was late. But the weeks of understanding turned into months of tolerance, and now that a year is approaching, no one close to you seems to be terribly forgiving of your particular brand of sorrow. Strangers and acquaintances appear to be more willing to engage in the emotional labor needed to offer goodwill.
“Subject: London Walking Tour
Hello,
We are looking forward to hosting you and your guest next Tuesday, March 1st at 9:30am. Just as a reminder, we will be meeting directly in front of the St. James Park tube stop before beginning at Buckingham Palace. Please find enclosed a downloadable map of the city, our schedule, as well as suggested items to bring. We are so excited to offer you the chance to see the real London. Should you have any questions beforehand, please feel free to respond to this email, or call our main office number below.
Cheers,
The Big Smoke Touring Company”
You tried to terminate the flights and the hotel reservations, and did what you could to get refunds for the tours, but it’s harder to elicit sympathy from corporations, so your loss bears no weight when it comes to terms and conditions. But this final itinerary item managed to slip through the cracks of your email and detonate in your inbox; the message serving as a violent reminder of what didn’t survive.
There’s a point of loss that turns your hurt into a gentle pulse. It’s not always at the forefront of your mind, but maybe you feel it as often as those with metal body parts feel the change in atmospheric pressure. Still, that stage is down the road. Right now you still ache in a way that leaves you numb some days, barely able to get out of bed. You’ve lost weight because you’re not eating as much as you should, if at all, each bite of sustenance turning ashen in your throat. At least the crying spells have stopped, and even then, the waves of sadness occasionally manage to crash into you with enough force to rattle your teeth, each grimace and pained wince a symphony. You pray for the day when your grief, now a boulder on your shoulder, is diminished to a pebble. But right now, you are Atlas grappling with the earth, barely holding on to a sadness – one that longs to consume you whole.
You tell people it was a drunk driving accident, but what you fail to mention is that she was the one who was intoxicated. The halo that normally sat so evenly upon her head would be fractured in an instant, the the holy disc giving way to devil’s horns. “What kind of person gets behind the wheel of a car like that?” Pastors. Felons. Teachers. Soccer moms. Deadbeat dads. Social workers. Liars. Doctors. You couldn’t even bring up all her goodness to defend her. Who cares if she was a community organizer, a soup kitchen volunteer, or a florist? All of those facts would fade into the background the moment they learned her BAC was quadruple the legal limit that night. You don’t tell them that every time you go to work, you pass the tree she drove into, or how most of your nightmares star her flying through her front windshield. You don’t tell them she was on her way to see you.
Initially, it was shame that made you you hold the secret like your last breath. That toxic combination of embarrassment and righteous anger lead to a mixture so virulent that it made your eyes burn. How could she be so reckless? So stupid? So incredibly selfish? Similarly to Narcissus in his vanity, Icarus in his pride, or Orpheus in his unbelief, your hamartia is what nearly tore you apart. Like Persephone, your gentle naïveté came with a price. Because perhaps if you were less doe-eyed, you might’ve seen it coming. You would’ve thought twice about how her breath smelled before noon. Maybe you wouldn’t have attributed the barely-there slurring of those late night conversations to tiredness. Who’s to say that if you’d paid more attention to her irritability, her rapid mood swings, that things wouldn’t be different? Then again, the blame of addiction is not yours to house (nor was it hers). At least, that’s what you tell yourself. Even as you continue to leave its room vacant, and set a place for it at the table. You’ve built a shelter for fault, the home growing and growing until it peaked as an inverted pyramid – the ultimate monument to your guilt. But red flags are harder to notice through rose-colored glasses. You know what they say about vision in hindsight, and you’re nothing if not a psychic in reverse.
Even as the dust tries to settle, on most days, the regret finds you out; an emotional beast seeking to devour. Your ears constantly ring with the crowing of the rooster, three denials or not, and that’s part of makes sleep so evasive. You thought that the dots you connected were her stars forming constellations. And now you see them for what they were: love letters and pleas. You struggle to trace the silver lining, each minuscule upside quickly fading to a dull bronze. Aren’t there less violent ways to learn lessons? You’re not sure why she did it. Why she was so urgent to see you, or what the frantic call before she made the drive over meant. You don’t know if anyone else suspected that she had a problem and, if they did, why none of them thought to come to you. You don’t know why she drank, or how long it’d been going on. The days grow longer and the nights shorter, and you notice assumed sins, both yours and hers, follow you into your dreams. But the chance to finally rest is a gift. You don’t have (m)any answers at all, with the scale decidedly tipping towards an avalanche of inquiries. And the one person who’d be able to answer them has flown the coop. So your two choices are to either make peace with the unknown, or suffer. You’re still mulling over your options.
The list of the questions is ever-present before you. It’s the first thing on your mind when you wake up, and the last thing on your mind as you crawl towards slumber. And from time to time, in those moments, the list of the knowns creeps toward you as well, reminding you that parts of your world were once concrete. You know that she smelled like eucalyptus spearmint right after the shower, and she’d never leave the house without the sapphire necklace that belonged to her grandmother. You know that she woke up and did yoga faithfully, and that her favorite flavor of ice cream was salted caramel. You know that she liked being the big spoon, and that she never flinched during scary movies. You know what it felt like when the year’s inaugural chill crept into the air and her legs were intertwined with yours. You know that not a single day has passed without that ring in your pocket, burning into your skin.
Loss rests upon you like a phantasm. The specter fills every room, casting shadows that pull the air from your lungs, each breath slick with effort. It used to sit upon your chest, crawling along the walls, flashing in your rearview mirror. She was gone, and overnight, bereavement became your new bedfellow. And yet, that was never enough. She always held your hand, but her fingers were cold, and just made you lonelier. You always had a dinner companion, but in her presence, everything tasted sour. She was an echo of what was lost, a pale imitation that wasn’t worth holding. So you do your best to let go of her too.
It’s difficult to love when mourning looms. Heartbreak is bitter, and serrates flesh and bone all the same. Now you’re convinced that there should be a sixth stage of grief – agony. And that’s where you are. There was no epiphany to bring you peace, no revelation granting clemency. You wait at the ready, but no burning bush has spoken. So you do your best to tie a ribbon around the final traces, even if all she bequeathed to you was a bomb. You will leave just as you came – empty-handed, but so much better for having once loved her.