The World In A Spectrum

            My therapist told me that this would be a painful experience but at the end of the day, this would be good for me. Sitting at my desk, where my wife and I had done paper work, discussed the weather over, made love, I was not sure how much I could get through without crying. Her story, my story, the two of us intertwined so deeply, where should I begin? The story of her tragic and ironic accident. The way we first met. Honestly I have no idea how things went down. Even now I can't look back to that last day and see it clearly. It could have been my fault; it could have been hers. But maybe even it was not either of our faults and it was simply just what was meant to be.

At times I was not sure what had actually happened. There had been so much that had been going on. But I knew from the start that I would not have changed a thing about it. Even if I could have. You see, the things that happen to us in life, often hold the scariest possibilities. Love, anger, laughter, anxiety, life, death. Before I begin to tell you everything, what happened, my life story, her. I need you to understand some things I had not learned until it was too late. Life is not fair, nor will it ever be fair. You aren't always going to get what you want. You're not always going to get what you need. Or what you think you need. Things will not come to you in the way you expect them to. She came to me unexpectedly, in an odd and sweet package. I know than that I needed and wanted her. But that is not really what I was going to have.

Over the years I've learned this message the hard way. I'm going to tell you now; you probably won't like how my story ends. I never like how my story ends. You'll probably wish you could change it. I know I did. I still wish I could change our ending. For the longest time, I had hoped that I had been dreaming and I would wake up and this nightmare would be over. But lately I'm finding it easier to breathe. Reality isn't as bitter as I thought it would be. Perhaps things are for the better. We were never meant to last; I knew that from the moment we met. She may have been one of the most special souls I had the pleasure of knowing so intimately in my life time, but we were never meant to have forever. Forever for us was fourteen years of my life. I wish forever could have been longer, I wanted over fifty years.

They say if you love something, let it go. But if you really loved something, why would you let it go in the first place? I was too selfish and held onto her tightly, my hands wrapped around her invisible chain. My eyes clenched tight, if I opened them too wide, I knew she would disappear. Now I know I should have been gentle, should have let her be free, and I should have done more things for her. Not for myself. She deserved better than me. She was perfect in every single way I could think of. For the entirety of this experience, you will hear and read me calling her perfect. Because that is the only way I saw her. The way she walked, her hips swinging back and forth, her feet pointed forward. She walked like her hips could move mountains. She tilted her head back when she laughs, her giggles caught in her throat and turning into a snort. The way her breathe escaped her in the winter, the fog swirling from her mouth. I was hopelessly in love with her. Somehow, by the grace of God, or whatever mysterious force of nature, she loved me back, for the time she was here.

Now I am sitting here, telling these strangers how this all happened. Writing out my feelings, to hopefully find some type of relief from the emotional instability that has cursed my life since the day of the incident. My story is going to be long and you may not want to be here for the whole of it. If you don't get anything from these words of mine, then I hope you at least learn to love what we are. What we were. I guess I have been taking a lot of your time up now. But allow me to rattle on for just a while longer. Love is going to be the most important thing in my story and sometimes I believe that it should be the most important emotion and feeling in everyone's stories.

There was not a lot of chances for me to take time for myself to talk about my personal life. I was a very closed off type of individual and refused to try and dig into my feelings. Sharing the way, I felt was not really something that I could handle, because it made me feel vulnerable. It took me ages to open up to people. Lord only knows my patient friends tried to understand, just how hectic everything was. But there are some things not even your friends and closest family can begin to understand. Unless they have experienced the same as you. The death of a spouse being the biggest thing.