For you to understand where I am right now, you’d have to have lived it. You would’ve had to experience this type of loss, grief and heartbreak. The only way for you to truly understand where I am in this new reality is for you to get here.
And I don’t want you here.
I don’t want you to know this type of catastrophe. I don’t want you to know this type of complete life rebuild and restructure. I don’t want you to know how it feels to bury pieces of your heart with the very one who left this earth. I don’t want you to know this.
I don’t want you here, companions with grief.
I don’t want you to know what it feels like to sit beside someone who is taking their last breath. I don’t want you to know what it feels like to see an empty space everywhere you go. I don’t want you to know how delicate and fragile life is when you’ve lost someone irreplaceable.
I don’t want you to understand because that would mean you’ve lived it too.
I don’t want you to know how quickly I’ve run out of pictures that I haven’t seen before or how devastating it is to know there will never be another picture taken. I don’t want you to know how it feels to pick up the phone and dial a number, only to realize that habit and tradition can wreck havoc on a heart that doesn’t want to comprehend a life no longer here.
I don’t want you to understand because that would mean you’ve lived it too.
I don’t want you to know how it feels to live with ‘what if’s’, ‘never again’s’ or ‘wish I would have’s’. I don’t want you to know how it feels to live with holes that nothing and no one can fill. I don’t want you to know what it feels like to visit a stone while trying not to allow your heart to become one.
I don’t want you to know this pain.
I don’t want you to understand this grief.
Understanding this means living this.
And I don’t want that for you.
I don’t want that for anyone.
Though death is unavoidable and grief is life’s most universally shared experience, I wish it wasn’t.
When you feel sorry for not understanding, know that I don’t want you to.
For you to understand where I am right now, you’d have to have lived it. You would’ve had to experience this type of loss and heartbreak. The only way for you to truly understand where I am in this new reality is for you to get here.
And I don’t want you here.
