I do, Augustus.
I do.
How could I not? This choice that spawned so much heartache, despair and yet so much beautifully sufferable moments. The moment I laid eyes on you and challenged you on your desire to be remembered. The horrendous driving… The slow and all at once romance I found myself in. The bottled stars we rode (pun intended) all night long in the beautiful city of Amsterdam. The sculpture of bones that could almost double up as the world's greatest metaphor. The amount of okays that were said. The choice that I would never take back for anything. So yes, I am happy. I'm more than happy. I wouldn't change it for anything.
I just wish I could follow you. I wish I could be next to you, out there wherever you are. A world where you get to shoot 3 pointers that you don't care about with functioning legs and a world where I can partake in the basic activity of fully functional breathing. Of course, that's completely unrealistic, even by our lofty standards and I won't even begin to pretend like I believe that such a thing exists. But what if it did? What if the "afterlife" was just whatever we wanted it to be. An afterlife where Christians see Jesus, where Satanists see Lucifer and a world where I see you again. Wouldn't that be something?
It's incredibly difficult to try and write this, whether it's on my phone notes app, on my laptop, or even on paper. Either my tears crumple the paper/drop onto the screen or I just can't find the words. But I know there's something there. I'm not in the business of sympathy, especially for people who don't deserve it, but I can't help but wonder if this is how Peter Van Houten felt when writing An Imperial Affliction. Your parents spoke beautifully about you, you know. As I've already alluded to, none of it was true, but as funerals are for the living and not for the dead, it was what people perhaps needed to hear. I'm emotionally intelligent enough to know that. Or maybe I'm not… only you could have an answer to that.
That's what's so annoying about this whole thing. Aside from the whole earth-shattering consequence of losing my beloved, I find myself with so many unanswered questions that you, even if you made one up, could provide the most extraordinary answer to. I find myself constantly going over everything, trying to find something in it, to make sense of it all, to find a pattern, anything. To find someone or something to blame for all this. It's my time soon, I know that. Even since the funeral, it's been harder and harder to even walk-up stairs or for more than a few minutes without rest. I almost like to believe that your spirit is the only thing lifting me up, just like in real life to be honest. That would be so you, helping me from even beyond the grave. I'm no writer, as is evidenced by the simplicity of this and it won't be read by anyone because you're the only one it's meant for, much like my eulogy (ignore the fact Isaac heard it). I suppose letters are supposed to be signed, but not this one. That's simply because
