Reaching over to your side of the bed, I expected to feel you beside me
I was jolted awake because you were not there
At the time I had no idea how 'The Reach' would haunt me for years in the twilight between sleep and wake
I'd continue to reach but I'd never find you.
I got up from bed and peered out into the living room, thinking maybe you'd fallen asleep on the couch or had gotten up early
and how niave of me it was, but I didn't yet know that this was the worst day of my life.
I think I called your name, but I can't be sure as panic set it and things became a little hazy at this point.
I found you in the bathroom. You were unresponsive. I didn't know what happened but as I tried to wake you, you didn't respond.
I remember looking down on us in the bathroom, with what was likely your dead body, but my brain did not accept that. You couldn't be gone. Not my Nick. Not my love.
I heard your voice from all around me say, "I'm so sorry," it was loud but it didn't come from your mouth. Maybe it was an auditory hallucination. The brain does strange things in the face of extreme stress and trauma.
I darted for a phone, but I couldn't find mine. I was so fucking panicked and scared and alone. I found your phone and dialed 911.
Things become more hazy. I knew this was an overdose because I saw the spoon in the bathroom. I told the operator it was heroin, the toxicology report would later say it was morphine.
I had to do CPR and the 911 operator instructed me but I failed. I failed you. I couldn't stop sobbing, hyperventilating. I was trying, but I was no good. I couldn't help you and I couldn't breathe either.
The paramedics arrived and I rushed to unlock the doors. I dont really know what happened after. They took you to the living room I think and I was sat in the bedroom. I was quietly sitting in shock, I kept asking if you were going to be okay. The female officer told me she didn't know yet.
They asked me questions and I dont remember what. They pronounced you dead and the doctor came to tell me and I kicked and I screamed "No! We were supposed to get married!" and other things, but I can't remember what they were. An officer may have been restraining me.
One of the many officers combing through my home asked if I wanted to go outside for fresh air or a cigarette and I must have agreed. I was in pajama shorts, so I went to my closet to grab a coat when officers panicked because they didn't want me unsupervised. Maybe they thought I was hiding drugs. Maybe they thought I was a danger. I don't know.
I stood outside shaking, blank, empty, in shock. In shorts and an open jacket in mid February in South Dakota.
I remember a male officer say something to the effect of "you look like you're doing alright"
I don't think I looked at him. I did not respond. I had already shut down. The female officer asked me if I could call someone, my mother. I tried to give the number but I guess I gave my own phone number. I was very confused. As I said, I had shut down.
Somehow they reached her and she came to get me from the home I had shared with my fiance. I was stone cold and silent until I saw her, hugged her, and broke down into wails and sobs. Before we left the female officer told me I was not going to be charged with anything, which hadn't even occured to me as a possibility.
For months I did nothing but sit or lay on my mother's couch. Sometimes I didn't recognize where I was. I couldn't look in the mirror. I couldn't eat. I couldn't exist. All I wanted was to go with him. I didn't want to be here without him.
People who pretended to be friends came and went. Family members collected my pets and belongings from the house I shared with my fiance. I couldn't return. I paid another month or two worth of rent just to avoid going back and tying up those loose ends.
I lost friends over 10 years long because I was "too sad to be around"
Nothing felt good. Nothing tasted good. Nothing felt like anything except for his absence.
I would have sudden panic attacks and freak out in a totally quiet home. The only way I could curb these was to observe my cats and note that they were sleeping calmly and therefore there must be no immediate danger. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.
I thought a lot about suicide. I thought it was unfair for my friends and family to expect me to live in the debilitating pain just so they didn't have to suffer losing me. I should exist in the pits of hell to spare them the very grief I was lost in. It seemed so unfair.
There was no hope. There was nothing to live for. I was a shell. I either felt nothing at all or extreme emotions - anger or grief. I said extreme things to people in the deepest depths and I cut ties wherever need be.
Grief was like poison inside of me. I had a toxicity in my thoughts and speech. I had a skewed perspective and no one had it as bad as me. No one could truly understand my loss and pain and the trauma of finding the person I loved most dead on the worst day of my life.
I went crazy sometimes. I had brief periods of psychosis. I would run out of my house in fear and hide in bushes blocks away. Fear of what? I don't really know. I felt trapped and I needed to go.
Grief is a shapeshifter and it never really leaves.
It doesn't get 'better' it just changes and morphes into different contortions. Maybe we get better at carrying the weight over time. I'm not sure.
It's been six years and three days. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, the day of his viewing 6 years ago.
I still ache. I still get angry. I still love. I still yearn. I still have nightmares. I still feel cheated. Every so often, I still reach for him in the twilight of wake and sleep.
Nothing will ever fix it. Nothing will ever make it better. There's no remedy. No healing potion. No spell or ritual. Just ache. I will ache.
As I continue to live, I will only collect more grief and you will too.
Life is an endless collection of loss.
dailybridgerton
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
stormborns
