Feels Like Loss

L accused me tonight of trying to sabotage her impending inauguration ball trip to Washington by sneezing and coughing all over her! Well, isn’t she just too smart for my own good?! The truth is that if I could knock her down and take her inauguration ticket I would do it in a heartbeat and I actually consider myself a nice person,…..but, I’m not. I would swipe her historic, ground-breaking ticket in a half a second, but that woman watches that ticket like a momma hawk.


I thought the other day about L going to the inauguration and had a sudden sense of impending doom. I suddenly felt like her mother, like she was in danger and I needed to stop her. I thought about how absurd this feeling was, I mean, L has lived in New York City and can likely take care of herself. Then I realized that here we are at January again and it feels like pain and loss and sadness. As happy as I am for her, as much as I wish I could be there WITH her, not instead of her,….it feels like loss even for this one person I met only a few months ago to leave, even just for a weekend. I don’t mean to make it sound like L is my security blanket, not at all. I just don’t want anyone to leave right now


This month


This day

This year


This moment

When the hurt still feels so fresh and raw and bloody. I can still smell the peppermint in his room, I can still feel his skin on mine when I held his hand and rubbed lotion on his arms. I can still hear the TV in the background and my wavering voice singing, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” to him just before he died. I can still see my tears forming a puddle on the pillow next to his left ear as I heard his heart beat for the last time. I can still feel his chest under my ear, hearing the sound of his beating heart fading into the distance.

I still see that moment, when I pulled the sheet back to look at his legs and I saw his mottled skin and gasped, “ohmygod!” when I came to that sudden halting realization that the last sign had been revealed, that last signal that told us that death was really taking him away.

Life here is okay, just okay without you. I still kinda’ wish that I had grabbed your once strong and mighty shoulders and held onto you as they wheeled you away so I could go, too. I never got to go where you went when I was little, I was always left out. I wish I would have gone with you into death. I miss you so much that it feels like a chunk of me is GONE and I am never going to get that back because it is YOU!