Weathered Love

GRIEF

No... no... please God no...

The receptionist could only watch as I backed away from her in shock. It couldn't be. This has to be a nightmare. WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

I kept urging, but to no avail. I wasn't sleeping. He was gone. I rushed to the bathroom, because I could feel the tears and cries rushing to my face and I didn't want to hold them back. I hurried into a stall, closed and locked the door, and tightly wrapped my arms around my midsection for support. And I let the walls down. Everything tried to escape at once, and for a moment, I couldn't breathe. The cries, the tears, the heaving... there was so much trying to get out at the same time that I couldn't do anything but silently heave, trying to let it all out. It felt like I was trying to breathe out a boulder sitting heavy in my chest.

I couldn't even cry out for help. I was completely and utterly alone, and it felt like I myself might drop dead soon. The room began to swirl, and I knew I had to exhale soon. I tried, but it was nearly impossible. All that came out were the overwhelming heaves. He was gone. Wiped from the face of the Earth so suddenly and so violently. And I couldn't even shed a tear for him. Because they were too big to come out.

Finally, a sound came out. I couldn't care less that it didn't even sound human, or that it felt completely unnatural and foreign on my lips. I just needed to let it out. The cries, the screams, the tears... they competed for a spot in my throat, and I didn't have the strength to try and control them. I could not organize them so that they came out one at a time. So I just let them do as they pleased. Because, in that moment, my composure didn't matter. My dignity, my ego, my... nothing mattered. My best friend was gone.

The one who knew all the pieces of me and still stuck around. The one who knew the right words to say to pull me out of my darkness. Who was going to pull me out of this? Who was going to push me to follow my dreams? Who was going to tell me funny stories about his misadventures and sing the wrong lyrics while in the car with the worst singing voice he could muster, but sing and play so beautifully when we performed?

Ivan... where are you now?

I don't know how long I remained crying in that stall. Some people knocked on the door to see if I was alright. I couldn't respond. I just kept crying. And then I would slap my face, hoping it was a dream and I'd wake up. "WAKE UP!" I yelled at myself. But there's no waking up from reality.

I finally took in a deep breath. I slowly left the stall, now feeling nothing at all. I wasn't sure what was worse: the overwhelming mix of extreme emotions, or the lack of anything at all. I walked to a sink, and started to feel the need to heave. But it was just more cries trying to leave my body. I ran back into the stall and let out such a terrifying cry, I even frightened myself. Once I had let out some more emotion, and calmed down a bit, I realized that I didn't have my phone and must have left it in the waiting room.

I went back to the waiting room. The receptionist came out from behind the counter and walked over to me, helping me get back to a seat, and giving me a tight squeeze. I'm sure it wasn't hospital protocol, and it was nowhere near the types of hugs Ivan would give me, but it was something. And in that moment, I felt guilty for trying to get out of the last hug Ivan gave me. The last thing I told him was I didn't trust his ability to buy me tampons. And remembering that I didn't cherish the last hug he gave me, that made me burst out in tears again.

"Is there someone you can call?" the receptionist asked me, suddenly bringing me back to reality.

"I want to see him," I insisted. She gave me a sad smile, went back to her chair, and almost instantly, someone was there to escort me to Ivan's room.

When I got there, they had just finished unhooking the last machine from him. He looked horrendous, and I wished in that moment I hadn't requested to see him. This wasn't Ivan. This wasn't the wise old soul who always made me laugh and would have the perfect thing to say in this moment. This was a bruised and bloodied person who only looked like Ivan. This was an accident victim. This was a statistic. This wasn't Ivan. It couldn't be him. This was a nightmare.