Months after…. I haven’t been coping well with his death, with life without him

Th

September 15

, 2010

 

I haven’t been coping well with his death, with life without him. I know this. I still can’t say his name. He was my friend, my love—my everything. When my parents died, I was only fourteen years old and even though my uncle moved in with me, I would have felt really alone if it wasn’t for his tender affection.

My uncle was a shell of a man who had lost his wife and only brother in the plane crash that took them all from us. The crash that changed not only my life, but also my dreams of performing; performing on the stage at the place where my father loved to be. I never thought I would recover from losing my parents, and even at fourteen, he was not only my best friend, but also my sole source of comfort. We spent every day together in the year following my parents’ death and we formed a bond that was unbreakable.

When tragedy struck again, there he was, my rock; the mountain I depended on to give me strength. I don’t really remember my parents’ funeral. I think I blocked out the memory of that devastating time. I do remember him sitting next to me, staying with me, taking care of me just as he did when my uncle died. But he couldn’t do that when he died, since he too was dead.

I remember my uncle’s funeral well. I was kneeling in the pew of the empty church, crying as he came to sit beside me, pulling me onto the bench. Smoothing out the wrinkles in my black skirt, he asked, “I’ve looked everywhere for you, Dahl. What are you doing here so early?”

Looking around, I noticed there was no one else in the church and thought how appropriate that was. I looked into his blue eyes and cried, “I’m all alone now.”

I shifted my gaze quickly to look somewhere else, anywhere else but at him. I didn’t want him to see me crying. I was stronger than that. I was a girl who knew death well. As I looked back to the front of the church I caught sight of Jesus on the cross. The colors from the stained glass windows reflected on the statue, and Jesus suddenly looked amazingly beautiful and tranquil. I wished I could feel that much at peace.

Cupping my chin, he turned me to face him as he looked at me with his crystal-blue eyes, clear as the sky on a cloudless day. “You will never be alone; you will always have me, you know that, right Dahl?”

But I don’t have him. He’s gone, just like the rest of my family, and I’m alone.