What else is there?

Between you and the boy, there is really very little else that I want or need. I see that now and it frightens me that those things might be so fleeting. That he is growing up and is slowly needing us less and over the past few years you have started to feel more distant too. My illness took a lot from me, and it took a lot from you as well. Which honestly makes me feel like it took more than I can bear to lose.

Ever since then I have been so scared to lose you. So scared that on any given day you might just do the unthinkable and throw in the towel and say “I can’t keep doing this.” And now here we are. A slow motion car crash of my life, our life, unfolding before my very eyes. I’m holding my breath as I wait for the moment of real impact. At the moment the debris is everywhere, no one really knows what’s happening and everyone is scared. But soon it will quieten down and I’ll just be left with the sheer weight of loss and of grief. Of love that has nowhere else to go.

You are tired and upset and don’t want to go around this whole merry go round of sadness again and I understand that. I don’t want it either. And I am trying so hard to make that happen. The therapy. The honesty. The leaning on friends to help. The reading. The Doing The Work. Even through the hard times we have never let go of each other. We have supported and cared for and helped and held.

Now you say you’ve run out of time. You’ve run out of energy. You’ve run out of fucks to give. And you do so like a bailiff or a doctor saying “I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do.” And I sit there tears streaming saying “please, I just need some more time. I just need some more time. Please. Please don’t take this away from me.”

And I look around and see all that I have done and all that I have tried to do and see that whilst it feels huge to me, it doesn’t amount to much for you. And you’ve stopped being proud of my efforts. And you can’t see my struggles anymore. You can’t see them because you can only see yours. And that’s not your fault. There’s so much to unpick. When we tell the boy, what will he say? What will he think? When we tell your family? How quickly will I be forgotten? I have all of my eggs in this basket. I am a functioning orphan without it. I don’t want to lose your warm side of the bed. I don’t want to miss picking your hair off of the couch. I don’t want to not hear your laughter again or feel your touch.

I don’t want to start again without you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I want to fight for that.