A Love Letter To The One I Lost Too Soon

I never got to write you a love letter and I am not going to. Believe it or not, this is a thank you letter. You won’t ever read this because you are no longer with me, you decided to take your own life three weeks after you left me crying on the curb outside of our apartment. Even though this will never reach you, I have to get these words out of me somehow so here you go.

I drove out to our spot so that I could dig deep and find all the words that I need to say. I guess that’s why I am out here. Just trying to remember, trying to forget. I don’t need to forgive you, what I need to do is thank you. Thank you for giving me memories worth drowning in cheap bottles of liquor.

I lied when I said that you broke me, you fixed me. You taught me how to love another without fear or restraint.

I won’t lie, that last couple months have been a wreck. Your decision to leave this life behind tore me apart and I can still feel parts of me that will never be completely whole again. You broke through years worth of walls that I had fought so hard to build up, and then you escaped this world and all the pain that it brings. I was left to clean up this mess that we made. In spite of your actions I have become something that I never thought I could be; strong. I am better than you left me. I am also so deeply sorry that it took you choosing to take your own life in order for me to become this person. Day by day I have fought to grasp the reality that maybe we don’t just get one great love in this lifetime, maybe what we had was the first of many for me.

When I my hands are wrinkled and age has taken ahold of my body and I am holding the last great love of my life in my arms, my mind will still drift to the time that we spent together. It is everything to me and I don’t know if anyone will be able to give me in fifty years what you gave me in a few short months. Happiness filled me up every morning that I watched the sun come through our window as I woke up next to you. I thought you felt that happiness too, your smile was so convincing. No matter how much love we shared I can’t get out from under the fact that I wasn’t enough to save you. I thought I could imagine how much losing you would hurt but I was wrong. I never imagined losing you in this way.

None the less, I am endlessly grateful for all the light that you put into the darkest places of me.

I miss falling asleep with your arms around me. Some nights I can’t even remember your face while others I can’t get it out of my head. Sometimes it feels like you weren’t even real. I miss the way you would sit on the floor and talk to me, just telling me stories and making me smile. I miss red candles and Chinese food on our coffee table. I miss singing to you like a crazy person on our way to the grocery store and the watching the way that you eyes would light up when you would laugh. I miss sipping cheap wine from the bottle and midnight trips to that 24 hour diner for chocolate chip pancakes. I miss how good you were with me. I miss the way I used to see you, you don’t look like that strong man you tried so hard to be for me from where I stand today and I would give anything to change that. I wanted a life with you, I wanted to hold your hand at sixty and say we made it. I didn’t need you to fix me. I didn’t need a diamond ring, two kids or a big house on a hill. I just wanted to spend the rest of my days with you. I didn’t want the world so I don’t understand why you had to promise it to me. You did not give me a letter or a reason why so when I can’t sleep and watch the sun start to come up through my window my head jumps to the worst conclusions because that is the only closure that I can give myself.

Losing you brought so much pain and darkness into my world, but I would experience that feeling again so that I can experience the love that we had again. I will welcome the pain and I will welcome the happiness because I know now that they go hand in hand. That is just one of the many things that you have taught me. My world was numb before my lips spoke your name and you cracked open the dark grey sky that made up my world. Life as I knew it is gone now, you woke me up and for that I just want to thank you.

I don’t know where we go when we leave this world but I hope wherever you are at, you feel infinite amounts of happiness.

The same kind of happiness that I felt with your hand in mine taking walks, talking like we had forever when we only had a few more days. When the day comes that I am ready to let someone back in, that is the way I want to love another. Until then I will be out here, loving your memory and feeling this gratitude for the lessons that loving you and losing you have taught me.

See you in another life my first great love.