After goodbye in All Good Things

A year ago we said goodbye to you.

You’d already been dead for five months and nine days. At the time it felt like forever. Now it feels like you died only a few weeks ago. I’m not sure why that’s changed. Maybe because back then I was lost in a miasma of shock and grief, and now I’m not, now I’m back to normal life - only it’s a normal life without you, for the first time in twelve years.

I miss you. I’m not angry or upset or reseantful that you’re dead; I just miss you.

Just before Christmas, Nora and I went to light a candle at the place where you died. It was opening night, only you weren’t there, so after all the festivities we walked down the street and around the corner, the tiny part of your journey that fateful day that you didn’t make, and we lit a candle and talked about you. She and I never really talked before. She resented me because of Chris, and I felt guilty because of Chris. But you know I loved you most - just differently. You know it was always you for me. If you were still here, I’d still be there. Chris isn’t enough, without you. Seeing Chris....hurts....without you.

He feels the same. He told me last weekend. He’s still wrecked about you. We talk about you without saying your name, but then he and I never needed words. We just look at each other and you’re there between us. With us. It was always you and me and him.

There’s a picture of you on the lamp post where you died. Nora told me your sister put it there on the first anniversary of your death. I didn’t know. It’s my favourite picture of you, and I stood gazing up at it while tears slid down my cheeks. It’s so beautiful.

It’s funny how I feel you there, in that place where you left us. I don’t feel you in the pub beside the theatre where your ashes are in the garden. I know you spent so much time in life there, and now the remains of your body are there too....and yet I don’t feel you there. But I feel you where you died. That was always my place for you, right from the very beginning, right there outside the Guardian building. Maybe a part of me always knew.

They’ve pulled it down now, the Guardian building. It feels right, somehow. It witnessed you leave us and now it’s left us too. It always made me think of you and now, just like you, it’s gone. For some reason I find that comforting.

So much has changed, you know. You’d be proud of your girl. She’s flying high, fulfilling all her dreams, and every time I watch her I feel you watching through my eyes and I want to burst with pride. I don’t talk to her much any more, though. But then I don’t really talk much to anyone, because I’m no longer there. Very rarely. It suddenly got too much, without you.

Without you. I have to live the rest of my life without you.

A year ago felt like perfection. We were all there, hundreds of us, gathered together by love for you, all of us who loved you most. One of the most moving experiences of my life.

I’d give anything to see you one more time. Sometimes it just hits me, you know? That you’re gone. That I’ll never see you ever again.

I’ll always love you.