Brain Bits To Go

Flash fiction February Day 11

Remnants – Reminders – Heartbreak – Absence

Everything of yours is still here. The bed where you slept. Your favourite snacks. Everything where it was before you left.

I can’t bring myself to get rid of anything. I can’t even bear to move them. It would be like pretending you had never been here. I’m not ready to do that.

You were so much here. Everything here was touched by you. Even if I could get rid of everything that was yours, everything else would still remind me of you. I remind me of you.

There really isn’t anything I do that you weren’t a part of. When I left for work, you wanted your kiss before I left. You wanted your hugs when I would get home. If I sat on the couch, you were next to me. Now the couch feels too large and too empty. The house feels too large. 

The world feels too large. It feels too empty.

You filled up my whole world with your love. In every look, in every touch. There was love. You were love, just pure, unconditional love. When I was impatient with you, you loved me just the same. When I didn’t take as much time with you as I could have, you didn’t love me less. There were no rules, no requirements, just the love in your eyes.

When you were here, I knew I was blessed. I knew how lucky I was to have a best friend like you. A friend who never judged or wanted me to be anyone but who I was. Your love was a gift that I tried so hard to be worthy of. 

But you’re not here. What gets me out of bed in the morning now? There are no kisses. No morning cuddles. No hanging out watching the sunrise, or the sunset. No sitting by the campfire watching you doze because it’s past your bedtime, but you don’t want to go in without me.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to go forward without you. I get home from work and you’re not there. The familiar lump forms in my throat. I promised you I wouldn’t cry every time I think of you. But that’s an easier promise to make than it is to keep.

I think sometimes I’m learning to deal with this. Then I sit in a room that’s too quiet without the sound of your breathing and my heart breaks again. I lie on the bed where you slept just to feel close to you, but that closeness is a lie. You aren’t laying there with me, not really, but I can dream for a few minutes that you are. Those minutes are all that I have now. They are all of you I can have anymore. 

When we met, I always knew you might leave me one day. I never thought it would happen so soon. It’s the chance we take when we love. When we allow ourselves to be loved. If we had had another hundred years together, it wouldn’t have been enough.

I have lost family before; I have lost friends but losing you has gutted me like nothing else. I will love you and miss you for the rest of my life. No matter how great this pain, I wouldn’t have missed your love to avoid it. You made my world brighter just by being in it. 

You had the gentlest soul, the sweetest smile, the most beautiful eyes and you were gone far too soon.

For Ducky. The best beagle mix pup EVER! Miss you my boy!

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Every word of this story is true.