“Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain, you are receding.” Roger Waters

Hopefully I will never be called upon to write an obituary or deliver a eulogy. To sum up the life of a loved one; I would end up writing a novel. Over the past few days I have experienced shock, pain, disbelief, guilt, anger… I seem to be moving through these emotions quickly, but it is a cycle that I am sure will repeat several times. I am even aware enough now to know that years, even decades after the loss of a loved one, I can suddenly be reminded of them and the pain will wash over me as powerfully as it did the first second I found out.

I took a break from writing here to let myself feel this and to let my thoughts drift from memory to memory. I could use words to describe our friend, “son, father, husband, soldier, friend”, I could talk about his laugh that always made me laugh or his enthusiasm for having a good time no matter what. I could tell you that he at one time was such a fixture in our home that I always set an extra plate at meal time and I had a stash of pillows and blankets for him to sleep on the couch always at the ready. I could try to convey the way his face lit up when my husband came home from work; such was the power of a friendship that had started when they were boys. I could describe the way I used to listen to him whispering softly to our baby Nathan as he danced him around the living room while I cooked dinner.

Out of all of Alex’s friends he was the only one who ever bothered to get to know me. The hours he spent sitting with me talking, listening, just letting it be O.K. to be silent, won’t be forgotten.

The events that led to him going from a near permanent fixture in our house to someone we only saw occasionally aren’t as important as I had thought. The fact that I heard about his death from my sister, who read it in the paper, and that it was too late for us to go to his funeral because it had already happened are horrible reminders of how sometimes life moves on and people slip away from us. I could sit here feeling guilty and I do, sometimes. I can think that it’s not fair that he was only given 37 years. I can feel that someone should have been able to save him; that we should have tried harder to help him, but deep down I know in my heart that you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

The last time that we spoke was Christmas day. I had tried to wear a dress and do my makeup and hair but I still was spending the day avoiding the cameras; feeling as if I was ugly, fat, and frumpy and a downright mess of a human being until he rang the doorbell. His face was beaming as I opened the door and he reached out to hug me, and then held me out at arm’s length, taking a good long look at me before exclaiming, “Wow! You look beautiful!” before he pulled me close and hugged me again. For that moment, when I heard that laugh that always got me started laughing, I saw through his eyes and I believed him. I felt beautiful. I told him that he looked beautiful too. I am glad that we had that chance to see him. I am happy that he had the opportunity to see our kids; to exclaim over how much they had grown and how much they look like Alex and me.

Once again I am reminded that I need to take every opportunity I can get to say thank you to those I have been blessed with. I need to learn to not be afraid to say “I love you”. Letting it be alright to feel is what I am doing now, after so many years of trying to become comfortably numb.