After you died I would drive out to the middle of nowhere just to scream. Drive out to the middle of nowhere listening to Madonna’s The Power of Goodbye. Singing at the top of my lungs, “You were my lesson I had to learn.” And then the screaming. Scream and scream and scream. Drop to my knees and scream. At the top of my lungs until I couldn’t scream anymore. Then I would weep. Sob. Crumple up like the spent blossoms from the flowers I took home from your funeral. Fall completely to the ground clutching handfuls of sand in my tired hands, letting it sift through my fingers. The fingers that used to intertwine with yours. The weight of your death, yours, not mine, presses on me. Flattens me to the earth until all the air is forced out of my body and I feel like I’ve been driven six feet under. Every single breath expelled until there is nothing left. No Thing. Rolling to my back I look to the sky. Blue like your eyes. Bright heat warming my body. My back to the earth. Damp heat on my cheeks from the tears I’ve cried. Blinking. Blinded. Wondering. Wandering in thoughts. Where does this exhaustion come from? This bone seeping, entire being, scorching exhaustion that I can only define as loss, grief. That is mine. The grief. The loss. Maybe your death is not mine. But the loss is. What was once there, by my side. Gone. Loss. Less. A subtraction from this life that adds more weight. People say it gets better with time to which I reply, “Does it?”. Then they have no answer and that is ok with me. Silence. That is the answer I want. Quiet. For people to not say anything. To be in the middle of nowhere where I can scream and there is no answer. Where it’s just me screaming and maybe you are listening from wherever you are, and your answer is silence. That’s what I want the most. That’s what I want to remember the most. The silence between us. How we never had to say a word. When nothing, no thing mattered, except us. I couldn’t stay there forever, and you didn’t stay here forever. And I can’t stay here forever. It’s time to go back. I need a different song on the drive back because I know the only way to survive, to some day find joy again, is to bear down on the beautiful bastard that this life can be without you in it. To be ready when it’s time to really live again. Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On takes me home and I sing to my favorite lyrics “Since we’ve got to be here. Let’s live. I love you.” Yes, let’s get it on. Life. Love. Whatever comes next.