It was so early that morning, the morning I thought the world would end. The darkness at 4am made it feel like the world had both stopped and continued. I knew I needed to make it another hour or so before the sun rose, or didn't. Once that time had passed I would be sure, either way.
The call had come through at 3.55 am on the 5th of April, you had only been gone a short time before my phone rang with the news I had been waiting for. I had been waiting for what felt like months. Everyday that passed without that call gave me hope which in turn filled me with dread. The waiting was harder in a way than the end, because once it was over I knew you were safe. I knew nothing and no one would hurt you anymore.
I didn't cry. Even when I saw his name flashing on my screen in the dark, not even when he told me, his voice quaking, the gravity of what he was about to say had not even begun to hit him, or any of us yet, but his voice was weighted in a way it had never been before. I held it together for him and for you. Be strong, you would have said, be strong for me.
I was strong as I hung up the phone and turned to the half asleep body in bed beside me. I was even strong as he shed tears, for the friend he had lost, for the girl who gave him me. I was even strong as we lay under the blankets, whispering words that we had said before but had never seemed so urgent. We lay like that, tangled together and savored the calm before the storm, the peace before it became real.
I was still strong when I phoned my Mother. Strong when I said to her words I hoped never to say. In her sigh, I heard her pain, her loss at a girl she knew so well, for the family, the parents and for her own child, who was experiencing hurt I knew she wanted so badly to protect me from. I hung up before I lost my strength. Before I asked her to come and get me, to take me far far away from here. So much of me wanted to be a child again, to be protected by her. I wanted to run home, up the stairs, into my room and to pretend this wasn't real. It was the first time I imagined turning back the clock, not just to erase today, but the seven years that brought us here. I thought if I could turn back the clock to before I met you, even forsaking all the love and joy we shared, I would be somehow sparing myself the pain. That was the first time, it wasn't the last, but it was also the first time I realised that even with the pain, and the cost we all paid for loving you, I would not give up a second if it, not one second of the love we shared even if it would spare me the present pain.
By 4.30 I was sitting on the sofa in my living room. I was taking my Mother's advice and waiting until a more humane hour to spread the news. By 4.45 the sun was rising and the darkness was slowly receding. I wanted to scream. I wasn't sure why, on one hand I was relieved, relieved that the world had continued, but I was angry too, for the same reason. I was angry at the world for it's refusal to allow you another sunrise and yet it had granted it to all the other nameless souls who in a few short hours would be living in their lives, the way you no longer could.
I expected it to be different. I expected that the pain of losing you would make my heart fragment and stop. I thought that instantly I would follow you, almost like how I had followed you (briefly) to Munich. But I didn't, and that made me angry at myself, angry that I continued to live without you. It made me question if I loved you, if I loved you enough, which in turn led to the age old question of why? No specifics, just, why?
The sun was reaching the point in it's battle with the darkness that it looked like it might win, at least for the moment. I looked at the list of people in front of me. I lifted the phone and began calling. Some were quick, we both wanted to get off the phone, before the dam burst and we couldn't control the flow of sadness. So we talked quickly, sadly, but quickly. Others were longer, harder, the grief was almost unbearable, but such was your impact. There was one I will always hold close to me. Her voice was thick with sleep, already wary of the news she knew she was about to hear. In my mind's eye I saw her in her parents kitchen, her long black hair drifting over her face, her hands clenched, waiting for me to say it. I could already see the sadness in her eyes that had begun to show the week before, the sadness that would never fade, even in the brightest of moments. I didn't want to tell her bad news, not again. And yet I did. For you mostly, it's what you would have done. You would not have let someone else break her heart, it had to be me, and break it I did.
There were phone calls from Australia and China as the impact of what happened echoed worldwide. Yet as I looked out the window again at the people going on with the start of their day, it felt as if it wasn't enough. I felt people had to know, they needed to be told, that one of the brightest stars in the sky had gone, and that the world was now a darker place, even if they didn't realize it. It struck me then, not that you had gone, for even now it doesn't seem real. What struck me was that the sun had risen, the world had continued to turn, without you.
It was then I cried my first tears without you in this world. Not just tears either but heart wrenching, soul destroying, sobs that shook my body and brought me to my knees. It was then I felt arms around me, lifting me, embracing me. I looked into the eyes of my other great love, my other soulmate and I knew my life, our life, would be your legacy. That the love you gave me and taught me to give would be the one thing that not even death would take from us. As he held me, in your absence, I made this promise; I will live my life, not in the shadow of your illness or your death, but in the light of your love and life.
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