A letter to my love, five years later...

Hey Baby,

Tonight is the eve of our last day together, five years ago. I am stunned by both the brevity of time and the distance between that night and now, as I sit in the bed we once shared. Our sweet puppy, almost 7 now, sleeping next to me as I write.

This is my least favorite time of year. As people are setting resolutions and hopes for the new year, I am reminded of all the birthdays and dreams you will never make. I am reminded that your life ended, along with 3 others, leaving broken hearts and hopes on that marshy shoreline—“sweet dreams and flying machines, in pieces on the ground.”

It feels like my resolution continues to be “survive.”

I am still learning how to shoulder the weight of your absence. I thought deployments had taught me how to live without you. It’s the aching, wistful hope that you will return that still breaks my heart. 

Physically, I am fighting my way through some of the worst pain I have experienced since breaking my arm as a kid. My left shoulder is a mess. And somehow it feels just, given the time of year. A small manifestation of your shattered body-- like a heart attack from an already broken heart. I keep fighting the pain, trying to find a way to move or stretch that eases the discomfort, driven to tears and anger in the process. In the end, I lie awake at night, just trying to breathe as the pain pulsates. If grief had nerve endings, it must feel like this.

I think shouldering the weight of your absence has taken it’s toll.

You once told me “strong is what you are when you get knocked down.” I’ve been trying to get back up for the last five years. I’ve run, I’ve learned, I’ve tried. Gravity is a heavy force, pulling me downward, despite my better efforts. My shoulder, and my heart find it hard to withstand. To love as deeply as I loved you is a steep climb back to ground zero. I am uncertain what “up” looks like at this point.

I find it impossible to hold faith in God or heaven after January 7th, but I believe in physics (largely because of you). A life force as great as yours must continue somewhere in this universe, though your form has changed. I find small comforts in that idea. A piece of you is in every snowflake, and rainbow. You are in the hoppy, malty, bubbly goodness of a beer. Your amber eyes echo on in Schrodinger in an impossible and uncanny way. 

Although I know you exist in spaces in this world, I still wish I could roll over in the morning and kiss your back, stealing those last moments of simplicity and holding peace that everything will be okay. Hope and peace crumbled on that beach beside you. 

Instead, I sleep on your side of the bed because it makes the space less empty. That's the best I have for now. 

Five years later, I love you. I miss you. Have fun, fly safe.