Jane, I don’t want to say Goodbye to you. I want you to be right here. Each moment, I expect you to just be there right next to me or to see you in a group of people. Or I look at a photo of you and feel my body pulled towards you. I don’t want you not to be here.
I know that at some time, I will let you go. Acceptance, I think they call it. But I don’t want that. I want to hold onto you. Really. And if I can’t do that, I want to hold onto every memory of you like a warm scrap. Try to put you back together again. I know, I know, the way to finish this process is to hold on and feel how I feel until it’s done. But even though it feels so horrible, I don’t want to finish. I don’t want to let you go.
I do not say Goodbye to going to a movie with you. To sitting until the end of the credits. I do not say Goodbye to each slow step up the aisle and down the steps. Holding your hand. To breathing slowly and glancing across to you, exchanging cues about what we thought of it. How we are affected by it. I do not say Goodbye to driving out of the car park with you, even though I bike, alone.
I do not say Goodbye to getting home together and then moving about the house, each doing our own different thing, knowing we will meet up again in bed soon.
I do not say Goodbye to touching the softness of your hair. To touching your cheek with my cheek and lingering there. To the gentle familiarity of you, and feeling my love for you. My Lovely, My Lovely Beautiful Jane, I do not say Goodbye to you.
2 replies on “Not Goodbye”
Dan, I’m reeling….I’ve been wondering for a few weeks how life has been for you in the past couple of years…so I googled your name. The results have left me completely shell shocked. Your experience is so painful to read, and I am deeply sorry that your beautiful Jane has passed on.
I can only admire your honesty, your beautiful words. Dan, please remember how good it felt to love Jane completely and to be loved deeply in return…. some people never get to experience this. You will be in my thoughts from now on. My love and my most violent arm cracking embrace I send to you now,
Sharon
Hi Dan – I found your blog by accident really – and am instantly swept up in your grief. I would feel intrusive – but you asked people to comment, so here I am.
When my son died, and again when my mother died, I wrote. It helped. (There were no weblogs then. I just wrote on paper.) Keep on writing.
I found when I lost my sweet son Jeremy, that I grieved passionately and with total ownership of that. It was my way of honouring the love I had (have) for him. I feel utter respect for what you are doing.
arohanui
Judy