You’ve been gone for more than two years but there hasn’t been a day that has gone by when I haven’t thought of you.
Sometimes I remember the way you smelled salty after you’d gone for a swim in the ocean. Or I wonder whether you’d have liked the movie I just saw. Other times, I just think about your smile. I think about how your eyes would crinkle and I’d always fall a little bit more in love with you.
I think about how you would touch me. How I would touch you. I think about that a lot.
The memory of you hurt so much at first. The more I thought about your smile, your smell, the more it hurt. But I liked punishing myself. I liked the pain because the pain was you.
I don’t know if there is a right and wrong way to grieve. I just know that losing you has gutted me in a way I honestly didn’t think was possible. I’ve felt pain I didn’t think was human.
At times, it has made me lose my mind. (Let’s just say that I went a little crazy up on our roof.)
At times, it has nearly broken me.
And I’m happy to say that now is a time when your memory brings me so much joy that just thinking of you brings a smile to my face.
I’m also happy to say that I’m stronger than I ever knew.
I have found meaning in life that I never would have guessed.
And now I’m surprising myself once again by realizing that I am ready to move forward.
I once thought grief was chronic, that all you could do was appreciate the good days and take them along with the bad. And then I started to think that maybe the good days aren’t just days; maybe the good days can be good weeks, good months, good years.
Now I wonder if grief isn’t something like a shell.
You wear it for a long time and then one day you realize you’ve outgrown it.
So you put it down.
It doesn’t mean that I want to let go of the memories of you or the love I have for you. But it does mean that I want to let go of the sadness.
I won’t ever forget you, Jesse. I don’t want to and I don’t think I’m capable of it.
But I do think I can put the pain down. I think I can leave it on the ground and walk away, only coming back to visit every once in a while, no longer carrying it with me.
Not only do I think I can do that, but I think I need to.
I will carry you in my heart always, but I cannot carry your loss on my back anymore. If I do, I’ll never find any new joy for myself. I will crumble under the weight of your memory.
I have to look forward, into a future where you cannot be. Instead of back, to a past filled with what we had.
I have to let you go and I have to ask you to let me go.
I truly believe that if I work hard, I can have the sort of life for myself that you always wanted for me. A happy life. A satisfied life. Where I am loved and I love in return.
I need your permission to find room to love someone else.
I’m so sorry that we never got the future we talked about. Our life together would have been grand.
But I’m going out into the world with an open heart now. And I’m going to go wherever life takes me.
I hope you know how beautiful and freeing it was to love you when you were here.
You were the love of my life.
Maybe it’s selfish to want more; maybe it’s greedy to want another love like that.
But I can’t help it.
I do.
So I said yes to a date with Sam Kemper. I like to think you would like him for me, that you’d approve. But I also want you to know, in case it doesn’t go without saying, that no one could ever replace you. It’s just that I want more love in my life, Jesse.
And I’m asking for your blessing to go find it.
Love,
Emma
I read it over and over and over. And then I folded it, put it in an envelope, wrote his name on it, and tucked it away.