Dear Don,
I want to write you something today, on our three-year dating anniversary. I’m coming up blank. I can’t find the right words to match the importance of the occasion. What would I say to you if you were here?
I’m so happy we found each other. I love you. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.
Maybe we’d reminisce about that fateful text I sent at 1:51 a.m., where I told you I didn’t want to leave you after we’d spent the whole evening together, after I volunteered to rub your leg, and after you let me. Both of those things were equally significant.
Maybe we’d retell the story---the one you told in front of all our friends when you asked me to marry you---of how, over a giant plate of bacon at brunch three years ago today, I said the fateful words, “So we should probably talk at some point.” And your very Don response of “Well, if it’s a good talk, sure. If it’s a bad talk, let’s just enjoy brunch and talk later.”
How proud you were that *I* asked *you* out, not the other way around.
We’d discuss how we wanted to celebrate this weekend. Maybe make a reservation at the restaurant downstairs. Then see which table’s conversation was most worthy of eavesdropping on.
Today’s been a bit of a hot mess, or rather your wife has been. I was dreading going to my dermatologist’s office today because she’d been so excited about my upcoming wedding and didn’t know about everything that's happened. So I cried the whole time telling her. She kept fucking asking detailed questions, like this knowledge was somehow going to help explain your death. I guess that’s how doctors deal with things that don’t make sense.
Then I went to Dunkin Donuts to take a conference call and they were playing really loud covers of really sad songs. The walls are plastered with coffee-themed motivational decals like “fresh start.” Shit that I would definitely have made fun of before, but now just feels so phony and unimportant.
So much feels unimportant now, and yet little unimportant things can trigger an emotional response in me now. Grief seems to be full of contradictions and dualities.
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" - Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
Duality is what I focused on in my speech at your service. (I refuse to use the word “eulogy,” but that’s for a therapist to analyze another time.) I talked about all of the things that seem to be opposites of each other but are the essence of you. All the things about you that were larger than life and yet subtle and nuanced.
I’m feeling a little desperate to write down as many memories about you as I can. I know I will eventually forget things about you. That would have happened even if you were here, but if you were here, I would get to make new memories with you to replace the ones I lose.
Luckily, we have video, so I’ll never forget your voice, your smile, your laugh. Those are the most important things. But because you now exist only within me, and our friends and family, losing those memories feels like losing pieces of you.
Happy anniversary, baby. I hope you’re reminiscing with your friends and family who preceded you and telling them all about me. I miss you today and every day.
Love,
me
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