Day 601

There comes a point in loss where you start to feel nothing. Unlike with fire where you feel nothing and all of it at once. This frost creeps. Feeling everything and then suddenly the stillness, cold, echoing, nothingness. It seems fitting I would feel frost bitten in the wake of his loss. We watched Frozen at least a million times. Our closest months were riddled with snow and awkward silences as I died in front of him. Ironic now that I am still here but you are not. I’m sorry you watched me suffer so closely. I don’t understand how all around me those who I have loved truly and rawly are slowly but surely leaving. How can you actually be gone? How is it in the past year and a half I have lost so much?

I’ll never forget when I first met you I laughed out loud. Here was another “sponsee” but you…. You were different. The best dressed drug addict I had ever known. You were cultured and incredibly smart but with just a dash of Jessica Simpson blondness. You helped us find a home for Zoey. You were the buffer when Dave and I really fought. You fucking moved in and had hottie parol officers at my house when I was 8 months pregnant. I hated you. Yet you were always family. You and I had “date nights” while Dave stayed with the kids because at the root of it all you were always one of my very best friends. Our love of food and culture was unparalleled in the small minds of many Precottonians. Thank you for all the delicious meals. Some of the best I’ve ever had.

In the days, weeks, months following Dave’s death you, YOU, were there without hesitation. Helping in every way you possibly could. Bath time, dinner, laundry, dropping off fucking mail, shoveling, garbage…. everything. You! Fuck dude you were there. In the trenches. You and Sara. With a sprinkling of others here and there but you buffered that unbearable empty. You loved my children as if they were your own. I watched you grow so much in those months. I know Dave would be so proud of the man you had become.

Sitting here now I don’t know how it’s possible. I don’t know the words to express how much you meant not only to me but to my whole little family. You are so so loved Hanlon. I will miss you forever and a day. Thank you for loving us enough to endure the brunt of my grief.

You can come back now 😢