Winter is almost here, and everywhere the world is holding its breath. Ice is clinging to the branches in Detroit, and though I know this was never your season, that it was never your summer like it was mine, I would give anything to see you stumbling through the snow with the dogs, the little flakes like sugar melting in your black hair.
When you died so did I, and so nothing mattered. Until the winter thaw broke, something stirring inside of those of us who are grief-stricken and in pieces, hope growing its aching blooms in my chest. So many things to remember; so many things to try not to forget. You baking banana bread in the kitchen (and you hated cooking, you hated it) just to see me smile. You cradling my pitiful chihuahua to you and never complaining once, because he saw right through you, and you were the only one he loved. The two of us sitting in Hemingway’s favorite northern restaurant, sunset bleeding over the lake and the windows wide, the beauty of it enough to make my throat ache.
I wish I could exist without doing all the damage my living requires. I wish I could be sweeter, kinder, softer, transplant your heart inside of me. I wish I could see you one last time, not to say “I love you” — because you know I do, better than anyone — but to say “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry I wasn’t a better daughter, a better person, a better friend. Because I believe that “I’m sorry” are the two most important words in the world; and I know that I shouldn’t think that, either. But I think a lot of things that I shouldn’t.
I have protected myself for these past two years, these twenty four months, built walls around me as high as Jericho. And now, at last, they’re coming down. They’re finally coming down.