Five years.
It's been five years since he died. Five years since I lost him.
It doesn't seem like it's been that long and yet it also feels so much longer. I remember the flat line when I kissed him as if it had occurred only yesterday, but at the same time it seems like a lifetime since my lips last touched his.
Five years it's taken me to be able to walk into the neurological wing dedicated in his name without wanting to cry.
Five years later and I can finally look at him and not hate him for being so stupid, for not admitting his illness, for forcing the urgent need of a heart.
Five years on and now I see the heroism everyone else saw immediately. Five years and the anger has subsided, the anger that he left me when there was so much for us still to do together.
Five years have passed, but not the pain. My heart aches for him still as much as it did the day the doctors refused to do anything to save him.
Five years and I still expect to wake up and find that this has all been a dream. Five years and at long last I have come to terms with the fact that it's not.
It's been five years and for the first time I want to enjoy life again. I want to go be out in the world and not be sad anymore. I want to think of him and remember everything that was beautiful and wonderful about our time together, not the awful way it ended.
After five years of only sadness and pain, I am ready to be happy again. I don't know how long it will be before I can truly and completely give away my heart again – except, of course, the part of it that will always be for him – but I know I want to try.