I’m writing from the future; you can call it time travel. It’s two years later but your absence still lurks in my presence; that’s wherever I’m in attendance. My mother still says I look like death, I always believed I was dead inside before I knew what death feels like. But now I know, I was never dead, I was just tired.
Even the voices in my head are merciful whenever I think of you, they know not to torture me more than I can handle. Aren’t I only human and don’t scientists say the pain threshold for an average human being is around 11 dol.
The day you died, I thought nothing would ever hurt me the same in this lifetime, I thought that was my threshold for pain; that was my 11 dol. I thought I would die too.
But the hypocritical part is that somehow, I lived through all the stages of grief. Some of them were a blur, I’m not so sure everyone passes through these stages in algorithms.
My denial was different. When they first called me and said ‘you were badly injured and fading out of consciousness’, I knew you were dying. Even when their next sentences were always encouraging “the doctors are doing all that they can”. A part of me knew I was losing you that day. Still, I kept praying my sixth sense was wrong for the first time in my life.
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I agree, after some time I was angry; I was angry that the world seem to not notice that my world has fallen apart. The sun still rose and set, the winds still blew, there was oxygen and there was carbon dioxide, there was photosynthesis and there was pollution. I mean everything was ganging up against me, somehow mocking me.
All these kids from the school some of whom never liked you kept posting about how you were such an angel and how you have gone too soon. How they are hurt and whatnot. You were a celebrity that day and weeks after that day and all of that somehow made me angry. I mean they still had their friends when mine was six feet under.
It is darkly humorous how when you are gone people start listening, people start loving and people start posting all these long paragraphs celebrating the life of a corpse.
At some point I knew that life has to go on for me too, I knew you were never coming back, and somehow, I have to find a way to defeat death; your death, my death. But it wasn’t easy when sympathy was in every corner I came across; in the smiles people gave me, in the way they said my name like I was a wounded animal; I was indeed wounded. In the way people approached me; like I was thorium and any time could be my half-life. Some of them were brave enough to say their condolences to my face.
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The stage that was remarkable the most was depression; I was depressed that I was sure of. Nothing made sense, no one made me happy. The songs we liked left a bitter aftertaste on my whole being. I was never sure I will listen to them again, leave alone dance to them. I was never sure I will be able to face the people you loved without it stealing my breath away. I was never sure if I will ever see the world the way you did. Maybe I’m still depressed.
Regardless, I had to accept that fate had been cruel to us this time. And so, I stopped putting your pictures as wallpapers on every electronic device I got. For this was somehow a coping mechanism that you are still here.
I had a bracelet made with your initials on it, CJ; the burgundy bracelet reads. And when people ask me about its meaning, the explanation no longer makes me feel like I’m suffocating. I have learned to celebrate your life; a life too precious to be thrown away just because I am a coward.
I still talk about you like you are in the opposite room though, like you just went to town for groceries and you will return as the night falls. Like you just went to a friend’s house for a sleepover and you will be back at breakfast. I still have your phone number and you are still pinned in my WhatsApp chats. I know I’m never receiving a message but I have not been brave enough to make alterations.
I’ve been trying to become a better person, so that you knowing me, and you loving me was never a waste.
I have learned to be present in moments because every moment could be the last. I have learned to embrace people a little tighter, and a little longer every time I see them because every embrace could be the last. I have learned to forgive, to ask for forgiveness and to believe I’m forgiven because life is too short to hold grudges, too precious to let pride reign and too beautiful to live in guilt.
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I once read somewhere that loving someone is attending a thousand funerals; of the versions of themselves that die each day. But loving you has been attending a single funeral to bury all the versions of yourself that died that day. And loving you has been attending a thousand birthday parties to embrace all the versions of yourself you could have been, all the versions of me you could have been proud of.
I’m writing for the future; you can call it time travel. It’s two years later but the shadows of your presence still lurk in my existence. I’m grateful, for your decay led to an isotope half amazing as you.
This Creative Nonfiction was published in the January 2023 edition of the WSA magazine.
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