We did not deserve the ending we had, where you are floating in the Otherworld and I am still tethered here, in my corporeal body.

We deserved an ending worthy of a romance novel or a movie. We deserved to ride off into the sunset. To have a real happily ever after where “ever after” truly means “ever” and not “after.” 

We deserved to live a full, beautiful life where we could walk through the doorway of oblivion together, when we were ready. 

In the end, you were ready. I was ready. The life we had adopted, the one where you were not who you wanted to be and I was so, so tired, that was not the one we wanted. So we were both ready to move on from that life. 

But we were not ready for what came next. Or at least, I wasn’t. 

Now, I’m here, in our “ever after” alone. People tell me you’re here, you’re watching me, to talk to you, to listen for you, to see the signs of you everywhere. And many days I believe that. That you are near even though you are far and I am not nearly as alone as I feel. 

But what if you aren’t? What if our letting go actually released us from our beautiful love for each other and now you are nothing and I am untethered on this plane until I become nothing, too? What if this isn’t spiritual, or beautiful, or a temporary separation? What if this is it? 

I feel you here. Over my shoulder. Hand on my back saying, “It’s ok. I know it feels too hard. But you’ve got this.” 

It’s too heavy some days. Even attempts to lighten this, to create airiness in the meringue of this life, fall flat. Do you know what flat meringue is? 

Gross.

It’s gross. And that’s what this is. It’s disgusting that this is where we are. I can’t necessarily believe in an “after” because then it feels engineered. This suffering feels engineered. Like some cosmic thing decided that we deserved to suffer. Or at least I deserved to suffer. 

We deserved better. We deserved an ending for the ages not because it ended before its time, but because it lasted for ages. Our dense life, our life well-lived, was not gross. It was beautiful and sweet and pleasant and something we could indulge in for decades without ever feeling sick. 

There’s nothing I can do about it except say: We deserved better. 

That’s all.