7 Things About the Boy Next Door

Prologue

"You were unsure which pain is worse -- the shock of what happened or the ache of what never will." -Simon Van Booy

~Harmony~

Grief in the dictionary is defined as a 'keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss'. But personally, I disagree. Why? Because I now know that grief is not as simple as a 'keen mental suffering'. It is so much worse. Grief is the desperation and futility of wanting something back and never being to have it. The emptiness you feel inside is incomparable.

After losing someone dear, time seems to hitch and you mindlessly watch the hours bleed into each other. You happily let the grey days blur into the darker nights until it leaves you trapped in a constant agony all inside your body. I can easily say I've never been more caged within the confinements of myself, sinking in my own ominous thoughts and sorrows than this present moment.

Oh, and let's not forget the searing pain that comes with it every time their face comes to mind. It is like normal pain you think, like when you scrape your knee or break an arm. Yeah, it might sting at first and some breaks might need a little longer to heal than others, but soon the pain will subside, your skin will grow over the wounds and all will be well.

Not heart ache. It is much more fickle and never tends to fully heal, whatever you convince yourself of. It strikes in tidal waves, some might feel like distant ripples and others may be more like killer tsunamis. But what all the waves have in common is that they are all persistent and they're bloody strong. It will attack from nowhere and eventually you will succumb, you will fall under and you will drown in the anguish. This sort of pain isn't pretty and there is no point in pretending it could be.

But on top of the emptiness, the time loss, the pain, there is something worse. Something darker and lonelier than you could ever think. And that is when a little part of you dies, too, with that person. Without meaning to, they leave an absence where the light should fill.

My twin sister was that light. After a long and draining battle, she died last night. We only turned seventeen seven days ago! It wasn't her time to leave me. I wasn't ready. So I held onto her frail hand until it turned cold and slack in my grasp.

At one point I thought that if I held on hard enough, projected enough strength through our entwined hands for the both of us, somehow, someway, I could save her.

How naive.

But that's what happens - you deny that the inevitable is occurring. You deny that your physical other half was succumbing to the claws of cancer. You deny that death can conquer the strongest person you know; the most kind and loving and lively person you know because it doesn't seem possible and it definitely doesn't feel right. You deny that you are holding the hand of your dead best friend.

Deny, deny, deny; mankind's greatest practice.

I read about the five stages of grief only this morning. It begins with denial - which I guess is the stage I am in. It says that denial will move onto anger, then bargaining, depression and ending with acceptance, however, I don't know how someone could ever accept such  grievance. Such misery.

Before this point in time, I hadn't fully grasped the concept of being 'broken hearted'. It is heard frequently around the world - quite a colloquial term I reckon - but I think that the majority of people who voice these two little words don't understand the true meaning of them.

I do.

Th phrase is very literally correct; my heart feels broken.

We all discover what the pit of despair feels like at some point, I just didn't know my time to feel it would be so soon and so violently.

Anyone who has lost someone close will understand what I am talking about. Understand the pain, the guilt, even. Those who haven't, I guarantee you will, someday. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not even in years to come. But you will, and when you do, you'll know. You'll understand my suffering.

Mum tries to be strong for the remaining two of us, meaninglessly repeating 'how it will all be okay', 'it'll get easier' and 'things will get better with time' like a broken record. But you know what? It won't be okay. Nothing about this situation can ever be okay. And she knows that. I would rather skip the hollow words we throw out there all together, but I know she isn't just saying it for my benefit, but for her own, too. For that reason, I bite the inside of my cheek and nod sadly, hearing, but not really hearing what she's mumbling.

So that brings it all down to the lone fact that my single shred of happiness I had has been lost to another annual lung cancer statistic.

Why don't you put that in your dictionary?