Going through the memories are difficult because so many happy things happened, as well as some of the sad things. It made a full tapestry of our lives together. I could not have wished for a better man to be with to share my life. If the Cosmos were intelligent, it has played a heinously cruel joke upon me, and I'm not laughing anymore. I haven't truly laughed since his passing, save to smile on command, or laugh at a joke when it is expected of me and to go to work and continue my life. All of it alone, by myself. How do you object to a universe that is constructed to cause this kind of loss and pain? There is no court of appeals. When you lose someone, it is complete and irreversible.
Cancer was the culprit, his murderer. That disease that has caused countless souls to wail and weep, my number being added to them. It didn't make me want to strive to work for a charity to stop cancer. How can I when I can barely comprehend the loss I feel? I just sold my condo. Our condo. That was a major link to our past, our time together, and now it is gone. All I have is a tiny portion of his ashes to comfort me. It's a morbid thing, but it somehow comforts me, even when tears flow down my contorted, grief etched face.
I tried several ways to lessen the grief. I made public announcements that this day, I would move on, or that on this day, I will begin anew, and so on. Noble gestures, but when all is said, I still come home to an empty apartment. I no longer hear the greeting he would always call out to me as I stepped through the front door, "Hello handsome one!" Just quietness. Perhaps the wind blowing through the louvers. The empty bed.
I haven't really spoken about my loss to anyone. It's not an easy thing to do, so I write on blogs. People won't see me crying while I unload it onto the internet. Should anyone ever see it, the tears will have long dried up and I will be doing something else, someday.
This was to be all about Dwane. It was to be about his time spent with me and me just being the guy in the background. Instead, it's become reversed. His ashes float and mingle with the primordial sea, his memories already hazing in some peoples' minds. And rightly so. With me, his memory is such a living thing. Dear God, I can still feel him touching my arm, or my face. I can still hear him saying, "I love you." That was also my last thing I would say to him each and every day, "I love you." I'm glad I got to say that the last time I saw him conscious.
The last day of his life, August 24, 2011, he was unconscious and looking so fragile, so helpless, and me, I was just as helpless. I sat by his bed, in the hospital, where he could be comfortable. They removed the mechanisms that kept him breathing. I was told that his mind was gone, but I couldn't believe it, not really. I held his hand, more for myself than for him. I listened so closely to each breath he took in and hoped his eyes would suddenly open wide and he'd say, "Hello handsome one!"
By late morning, while hold his hand, I whispered to him, "You can go, if you want. I'll be okay. I love you." and after that, all I could do was listen to him breathing. It lessened. Then, slowly, it stopped, and I found myself alone in the room, holding a little fragile doll. That is the only way I can describe the sensation. Dwane wasn't in the room anymore and I remember getting up from the chair and going to the nurses' station and said, "I think he's gone."
I wandered outside a bit, not knowing what else to do. Go home? Where was that? It dawned on me, my home was gone.
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