To the one I loved,
I've stopped counting now, how many days it has been since you left me. Perhaps it seems harsh to phrase it that way, but you left and I thought I would never forgive you. Does it surprise you to hear that I was angry first? I suppose it probably wouldn't. I don't think I knew what anger was until that day. I did not know what it was like to literally see red—for everything in my path to take on a blood-tinged hue, which grew shaded like a tunnel, and then there was nothing but blackness. I thought of the look on your face when you left us and I screamed with rage. Everything was just wrong. It should not have happened then, on that day. It should have happened years ago, during the war, when we were all prepared for it. When I did not know what it meant for me to be yours and for you to be mine. When I could have held on to the fantasy of us without ever knowing how sweet it could have truly been. Or it should have happened fifty years from then, with both of us old and grey. With our matters settled and our lives lived together. You promised me that once—that we would live our lives together. I know it's not fair of me to bring it up now, my darling; it's only that you were never one to break your promises.
I did not know how much you were a part of me until you were taken away. How you had become stitched into the fabric of my being—seeped into the marrow of my bones. I can't tell you how badly I wished then to be able to pull my skeleton from my flesh, to be as hollow as I felt. I longed to crack open every bone and pour you out of me, because the anguish of that would have been easier to bear. In my weaker moments I'd lie to myself and say that I never needed you, because the lie was less painful than the truth. I did need you. I think that perhaps I still do. But you are no longer available so I must do without.
I wish I could tell you that I have been strong in your stead—that I've been able to brave the storm—but I fear that you would be disappointed. I have stumbled in your absence and I have made many mistakes, some of which I blamed on you. Or the lack of you. It's often hard for me to tell which makes me angrier. If not for you, I wouldn't be here now. I would not be feeling this way. But if not for you, I would not know what it means to feel like this—to have known love and completeness so wholly. The pain of losing you was not like that of a cut or a scratch. It was like being ripped in half, or burned alive. It was not a crack in the surface, but rather the creation of a chasm. A wound like that does not heal—not to the way it was before. When the earth shakes and the ground splits apart, it does not grow back together. It weathers anew and the landscape changes. I am trying to do the same.
I can remember you now and still bring air into my lungs. I can look at our son without crying. I can sleep in our room in the bed that we shared and not wake in the middle of the night soaked in sweat and tears. I can walk without feeling like I am going to fall. I can say your name without my voice cracking. I can sit beneath our tree and not pray with all my might that it may fall upon me and crush me into the ground. I can forgive you for leaving because I can see now there is nothing to forgive. I am getting better.
It still hurts, and I think that it will continue to hurt for the rest of my life.
But it doesn't hurt quite like it used to.
Not anymore.
Just wanted to say a quick thank you for reading. I've gotten an interesting mix of criticism and praise over the drabbles I've posted, and I thought I would clarify that I am in no way trying to demean the M/M relationship. Everyone processes loss differently, and for me it has been more cathartic to visualize Mary moving on and being happy rather than dwelling on her being sad (which is clearly not everyone's cup of tea). She is going to mourn her husband. She is going to be devastated. It is not going to be easy for her to carry on. But she's not Miss Havisham, she's Mary Crawley. She's going to take the rubble of her shattered life and she is going to build a foundation from it. She's going to keep living, and that means adjusting to a new landscape.