a win for now
Recently I lost a heart I held close. A presence that could not judge, for the concept itself was foreign. A presence that made the house live has moved on. More precisely, my boy, my rogue rascal, chose to move on, on his own terms, departing not in sorrow but with the dignity of a life fully lived, leaving behind only the echo of his presence. The pain hasn’t lessened. It just learned to breathe beside me. I’ve made my share of bad calls. The kind of errors that time itself could not erase. But at least those wounds were self-inflicted. This one was different. This one was carved into me by fate itself.
The morning after was its own punishment. A kind of living death. The house, the streets, the light... all were the same, but muffled by grief. At 45, this was my first sincere encounter with grief. My healer, the one I’ve come to trust, told me something that startled me.
He said grief hits harder after the age when we’re called upon to be caretakers and that it has a way of forcing you to reevaluate your life, your choices, everything you thought you understood.
Somewhere in the days that followed, a cowardly tremor ran through the depths of me. A whisper from the trenches. Like Gollum, that wretched voice hissed, we’ve tried before master… perhaps a third time will take?
But then another voice climbed up from even deeper in the trenches. The one that guards what’s left of me. The one that’s seen me at my lowest, through too many nights, and claimed its place and chose to stay.
It wasn’t just my voice. No. It carried an echo, a warmth. It carried her soul, keeping alive the man I was before my lowest. That part of me, of us, like a double helix, stood up and faced the coward. Together, we went full American History X, our wrath a tide he could not endure… for now.
With everything I have, my love... I hope these words never reach you. But if they do, you’ll find me at the golden arches on 77th and Broadway, fish filet and fries in hand.