The Unimaginable

I’m so sorry that I didn’t give you time to process and I rushed you to recover from the shock of losing him.

I made you pretend to be a rock.

To not let anything show and just be strong for everyone around you.

Two weeks.

That’s all the time I would allow you to grieve.

When the last person left you and it was too hard to be at home.

I made you go back to work.

Day in and day out, I made you smile and laugh and pretend like nothing had changed.

To pretend that you weren’t going through the unimaginable.

Suffering so deep that it stripped you to your core.

Your heart froze over, you hid away the broken parts of you so no one could see beneath the surface.

I hate that this made you feel so alone.

Isolated in your pain.

I’m sorry that it resulted in you crawling into a ball and weeping in the shower.

That you felt like that was the only place that you could let your guard down.

You needed time and I robbed you of that.

Your loss, your pain. It deserved to be heard.

Looking back now, the trip to Africa was the best thing that could have ever happened to you.

You were prepared for something to go wrong.

You made your Will, wrote out all your burial instructions and put all your trust into the unknown.

You let go of the fear of dying and accepted your fate, no matter how it would play out.

Little did you know that it would test you beyond all that you could have imagined.

Digging down for strength that you didn’t know you had.

Trusting people again. Trusting that it was your destiny to complete the trip.

You told your mom that initially. That this was meant for you and you walked to it with intention.

Maybe it was the lifeline you needed.

To start figuring out how to live this new reality.

To deal with the daily pain, to fight back against the darkness.

I know that sometimes it gets overwhelming and you break down.

The rollercoaster doesn’t climb as high anymore, the fall isn’t so deep now.

I am truly sorry that I made you pull away from anyone who tried to help you.

It’s a coping mechanism that I’ve always had.

You see it now, that so many people are suffering in silence.

That they too struggle and put on a brave face.

Pain finds pain.

You can feel it now. The way it radiates from someone.

It’s in their eyes. Just a slight brokenness that is barely visible behind the mask of smiles.

It’s in the those moments that you connect with the broken-hearted, that you see how far you have come.

You didn’t give up, you didn’t turn to drugs or booze to numb the pain.

You pushed away the unimaginable.

Look at where you are now, compared to where you started.

You still say his name as often as you can.

You couldn’t control the fact that he died, but you still tell his story.

So others know and remember who he was, what he did with his life and what he meant to you.

I know you will always miss him, your best friend…

Just know that the rest of the world misses him too.