Gone

I stand in an empty room, quiet and silent. No sound, no tone to the music that was once your voice. This room was always so fully furnished, filled with tables of love, chairs of hope, cups of inspiration, plates of understanding, Platters of deep connections, spoonful's of talks, those conversations that would last hours, but played with time like a swing full of minutes. How could this have happened? Why did you seem to change so quickly? ...

How can you be gone?

If the soul is the spiritual life, and life feeds the love, then why aren’t you here when the love in my heart cries for you? Can you not hear the anguish?

Similar to the crashing of a thousand plates, my feelings splinter and hit the ground in a symphony of what has shattered and stood still. Why wasn’t there more time? How was it swept away?

If the room is now empty, can’t my thoughts freely bounce off these lonely walls full of pain? Why? Why didn’t you talk to me more...? Didn’t you know that I would understand? My prayers would have defied gravity and risen up to the divine in a humble request; send more peace, send more strength, send more time, take your payment from this wealth of love.

Redecorate this room, bring the furniture back. Make the colors more vibrant and the wood finishing richer. Order the chairs from exotic lands, and the tables from the bounty of the seas. There is so much more to be done. I look at this room, empty and stoic in its current state, and know that you are gone.

Words of encouragement flow from those around me, sweet words, words full of hope with a hint of how to face the future. They all sound good, but yet I want to scream an answer to each one.

“Let Go.”

How, when they are tied to my very soul?

“Life goes on.”

Maybe it does, but my life feels like it stopped in a shadow the day their sun set.

“They wouldn’t want you to stop living.”

Then why did they stop? How do you live when the essence of what was a part of your life is no longer there?

“Be strong.”

I feel so weak.

“They are always with you.”

Then talk to me. Feed my hungry eyes with the feast that is your smile. Let me hear the music of the way you said my name. Come back from infinity and stand with me as we step into the future.

How can they be here when they are gone?

The silence is deafening in its finality. Gone are our days of experiences, of sharing ideas and laughter, of getting angry and learning lessons, of conquering problems and sharing victories, of looking forward to the possibilities.

Gone…

Gone…

Gone…

Such a short word to describe what is eternal.

So I close my eyes and fall into the oblivion of what seems so final.

I realize that I can’t shake the feeling that you felt the loss as well. If death is a transition, then you went on a trip without me in one sense, but you had to take me with you in another.

I feel my pain of losing what once was, but how did you feel? To leave what you had always known, to be brave enough to step into a new journey, but with me in your heart.

If life is in love, then love is in life as it steps forward. My love has to be a part of your life no matter what form it transcends to. You are forever with me and I am forever with you.

The room is not empty, it is just transformed. You have set up residence in my mind and in my heart, our time together flashes frame by frame as colorful pictures in my memory.

I can still clearly hear the sound of your voice, embedded in my soul like a song from childhood. I am no longer a child, but the song nurtures the adult I have grown to be.

Did our experiences fade away, or are they what helped to make us what we are today? If I was a part of your life, then your life carries me wherever it goes. Your words of wisdom, your mannerisms, those little things that just make you who you are, are all there for me to turn the pages as though I were thumbing through the leaves of a book.

It is always there for me to reacquaint myself with my favorite parts. You enriched my life. Everything was not perfect in the way that the word makes you think all is smooth and shiny, but perfect in its truth. It takes courage and willingness to work through the unworkable – that is where we found our perfection.

Each day is hard and I chip through the rock of living a little at a time to get to the center of healing.

I will never stop missing you in this life.

I know however that we carry each other warm and gentle, like the softest breeze on a beautiful summer day. You will never leave me, and I will never leave you, that is written in the DNA of love.

My heart’s testimony lets me know this. I have found my courage, you taught me that. So how could you take flight and truly leave me? You can’t, and I know I was mistaken.

Your life is a part of mine, everlasting and eternal.

I know that you are forever with me, even as my eyes try to tell me…

That you are gone…