One year ago today, the greatest woman I’ve ever known, or will know, died. Looking back, she is the only woman I’ve really, truly loved. I was more myself with her than I am without her. My world didn’t suck with her in it. It certainly sucks without her in it. She was mi corazón. Mi vida. Mi media fucking naranja.
I knew at the time, and the last year has increasingly convinced me, that I also died that night. My heart just hasn’t had the decency to stop beating. If not for my daughters and six year old niece, by now I’d have taken a more direct approach to making it stop.
My long-held plan for today has been to listen to the playlist I made for her. That we listened to together for almost seven years. That was the background music at her memorial. To read our texts as we went from two people who clicked immediately, to dating, to a relationship, to love, to living together, to being everything for each other. To see her going from broken and scared to trust to trusting me, quite literally, with her life. To wallow in this abject fucking misery, but also to remember how fucking awesome she was and life was with her. It wouldn’t suck this much if I hadn’t lost so much and that’s all I have to hold onto at this point.
However, the goddamned universe isn’t done with me just yet. Yesterday, my older daughter got sick. Probably nothing super serious, but she’s been admitted to the hospital. The same hospital where the love of my life died. I get to spend the day in the last place on earth I want to be on this day.
So, I will go into the closet where the scents of her favorite fabric softener, her lavender sachets, and her perfume still linger. And I will ugly sob like a goddamned toddler who dropped his ice cream. I’ll hold her “Literally Freezing” sweatshirt as if it could help. As if she were still in it. (She was always cold to the point I kept hoodies and sweaters in my car for her, just in case, sealed in a plastic bag so they didn’t have dog hair on them.)
Then I will swallow this shit. Bury it deep. Drive the same route that I drove behind the ambulance only to get to the trauma room to be told she didn’t make it. And be there for my daughter today because that’s what I fucking need to do. Fucking universe.