To The One Who Stayed

Love after loss is nearly impossible to explain. It's wonderful and painful, it's full of butterflies (the good kind) and anxiety (the bad kind). It's tears for safety and tears for the excruciating fear of forgetting, replacing, disrespecting, hurting. 

On its best days, it feels like a warm embrace from a world that seemed like she had it out to torture you.

On its worst days, it's a punch in the gut -- because you're stuck between lives -- in purgatory -- one foot in his grave and the other so desperately trying to run forward, with him.

It's taken a while for Ed and I to find our stride. 
There has been many conversations, many tears, and so many blockers to what he deserves: a partner fully and completely in love with him and our life together. But we are finding our way together, building something new and beautiful, and I am so thankful that our hearts found each other on a silly little app. 

I've tried so hard to explain the duality of grief, and this poem is the best way I have come up with. 

There are many grievers who talk about the heart expanding with love, like it does when you have another child. 

But I have come to see it a bit differently. 

I hope this speaks to those who have lost, and those who have stayed, too. 

To The One Who Stayed

I met you on a Yellow day in May
after chatting about work and dog nicknames.
You didn’t know it then, but I told my friends
that you were the last one. And then I’m done. 
And I meant it.

Because the ones before you looked strong,
but their knees buckled under the weight
of the grief they didn’t even try to carry,
and I was done trying to pretend 
it wasn’t that heavy.
 
But after all of the back-and-forth banter 
and mediocre coffees with matches
based on trivial data points like
what I like to do on Saturdays
(cry, usually, because he died on a Saturday),
I decided to call it a day. 

And why isn’t there a machine 
that can find a match 
based on how deep the holes in my heart are?
How can it know that the veins are decent at flowing 
blood into chambers and keeping the machine 
that is my body going,
but that the pathways look like scars?

Does it know that every day when I open my eyes
and realize he’s gone, again,
(it only takes seconds)
over and over, again and again,
that I would always whisper, Please stop beating 
to my destroyed heart
and she would whisper back, gently,
I wish I knew how. 

How do you write that in an “about me” section? 

But then there was The One Who Stayed. 
We met on a Yellow day in May – 
a day that felt like a sunflower must feel 
to a bee napping in her florets –
soft, gentle, safe – 
that even my fractured heart fluttered, light. 

You didn’t know about my heart condition then,
didn’t know that the ones before you had investigated and inspected 
and deemed her totaled – beyond repair – 
didn’t know that she was beating still, a medical marvel, 
because no one survives that level of pain
and lives to tell the tale. 

Later, you would tell everyone that I catfished you –
that I was the first person you’d met who
was prettier in person than in their photos – 
that I thought, oh shit, he’s not gonna speak,
after minutes of your stunned silence,
allegedly from my beauty. 
I don’t think anything has ever made me feel
as pretty as that. 

And a few minutes into the quiet, 
I filled the void with noise 
and you quickly had me laughing, actually laughing,
not the polite pity laugh I was so accustomed to performing. 
We ate lemons on pizza in the Yellow air 
and I felt my body sink into my chair: comfortable, relieved, happy. 

That dinner turned into so much more
than I ever could have dreamed when I told you 
your job sounded beautiful because you were surrounded by color
and you said, I never thought about it like that,
and now, a Crème Brulee house, 
a Cinnamon Slate dining room, 
so much color in my world, thanks to you. 

One night on your old couch you held me close
and my heart – the broken one – 
was trying to prove her presence by pounding on the doors to get out 
and I told her Be quiet! Not yet!, 
but she finally feels alive, for the first time
and there's no stopping her.
So I looked at you (barely) and whispered, I think I might…love you? 
softly, timidly, with a question mark at the end,
because questions are curious, can always be 
redacted. 

But, you loved me too. 
And I had to tell you time and time again
that the scars on my heart are, in fact, beyond repair.
That you don’t need to break out your toolbox,
when there are just no sutures for such damage.
That your efforts were valiant, but she was terminal.

But still, you wore your toolbelt.
But still, you got out the Duct tape.
But still, you read the latest discoveries and technologies
on heart repair in medical journals and Reddit threads as I rolled my eyes, or cried.
But still, you stayed. 

And then, one day, I grabbed my chest in bed
and reached for your hand in mine.
It’s exploding, I said, panicked, frantic,
because how many times did I wish her to flatline
and expect her to keep beating?

You jumped into action with your books and the stethoscope 
you found online for broken hearts
and told me to breathe as you listened
with the care of a surgeon.
Ah, you said. I see, you said. It’s time, you said. 

You skimmed the pages of the book in your hand
until you saw a tattered dog-ear.
Beaming, like it’s treasure, you show me a starfish, blue,
and I am unimpressed, worried, dying, confused.
But you are patient, kind, understanding, excited.

You point to the words under a picture of the star
and I read, slowly, trying to absorb.
You say, When the Blue starfish loses its arm
the missing piece grows a whole new starfish.
Did you know that? you ask, excited.  

You pull my hand to my chest and rest yours over mine 
and I feel the beating of two hearts, one old, one new
and we don’t understand but I swear to you
like the Blue starfish, now there are two.  

And who knew such magic was possible on dry land,
but I have mermaid on my mom’s side
and salt water in my veins,
and somewhere in my genes, a Blue starfish,
and somewhere in your genes, a broken heart fixer,
and somewhere in our future, a beautiful life made from broken parts.

And now we know that first heart of mine 
will always be scarred, always beat with the pain of what was lost
in a small White house in June 2022, where she still lives.   
But you see the beauty in my scars now, too. 
And my second heart beats so loudly for you,
everyone can hear it.  

I think I might… love you? I say, on a tattered old couch one day,
not knowing anything except that if I don’t say it now
my heart will most certainly explode,
and for once, I want her to keep beating,
not knowing anything except I hope you’re The One Who Stays.