It’s an unfamiliar place the walls are bare and colorless. Moonlight streams through the window casting shadows.  I am exhausted from days and weeks without rest.  Sleep grabs at me pulling me into its peaceful promises. The first dreams are dark and distant: places I’ve never been or seen. There is a cold so fearce it pierces through my body and I feel it in my veins. I am alone. I am shivering. I look around for a sign of life but it is not there. I cry out and am shocked by the clarity of my own scream. I begin to walk through the barren land searching for something, anything that has life. I needed a sign that there was something out there, a sign that I was not alone. My steps are cautious, twigs and leaves are everywhere. The only sound traveling through the air is that of them breaking beneath the weight of my feet. My pace increases as panic begins to grasp at my mind. Where am I? Why is there nothing, no birds, crickets, squirrels, frogs, people? I am alone, truly alone.  I am running now, through the trees and brush. My breathing is short and shallow, I begin to gasp as there doesn’t seem to be enough air for my lungs, my cheeks are stinging as tears stream down my face. I am falling before I realize what has happened.
   There is darkness everywhere. I am falling, my heart is racing, I can feel it beating out of my chest. I reach out to grab onto something but there is nothing. I am just falling. My body feels like it did riding the graviton as teenager many years ago. My mind is attempting to understand what is happening all it is sure of is that I am falling fast and I can’t see anything.

I inhale deeply, the shadows are still on the wall cast by the moonlight. It was another dream. Why can I not drift off into the bliss of the peaceful promises? Gone are the days when my dreams were kind and full of joy and happiness. I  stare off desperately wanting to return to sleep but fearful of what movie my mind will play next. I do my best to think of pleasant things. The ocean at sunset, a fawn lying in a meadow, children laughing. I begin to fade, the room transforms as I allow myself to fade into sleep. I roll over and am floating in the space between reality and dreams.

It is then that he is there. I feel everything as though time has not passed and the nightmares never began. The bed shifts and creaks beneath his weight. He embraces me as he enters pulling me into him. I can smell his skin and feel the warmth and comfort of his arms around me. I say his name low and breathy “Jeremy.” He hugs me tighter,  nuzzles my head and says “it is okay”. I am overflowing with feelings of joy, comfort, and warmth. It is this state of peace that allows me to begin falling asleep.  Before I am encompassed I say “Jeremy, I love you” in a voice so small and distant I am not sure if anyone could hear me. I am so completely comforted by his presence.  In a moment I am gone my mind creating vivid and wild dreams. It is as though the past eighteen months are playing on the big screen but with the added flare only a dream can give.  When I awake in the morning, the room is still unfamiliar, the walls still bare but,  I feel an odd peace. Whatever one might call it, it was real. I am certain of one thing: know no matter what I do, where I go, or who I am with, he is with me always.

The days come one after the other. They are fast and slow. They bring feelings of joy, fear, sadness, and tears. There is life all around weddings, births , new discoveries and adventures. There is also death and loss, hurt and pains. There is sadness so strong that it pulls like the undertow of the sea. That sadness leads to one place so far removed from all the laughter, joys and happiness: The Abyss.

I’ve been drawn towards the abyss on many occasions. I lived in its entryway the first few weeks after the world as I loved it ended.  I’ve contemplated greatly the desire within to walk through its doors and let it encompass my body,heart,mind and soul. To live within its void. To let go of all the hurts and be at peace.  Some days the calling of the abyss is so strong the belief of its promises so great it is hard to turn away……..

   It is the smile on my children’s faces. The kindness of a stranger, the beauty of a sunset that keep me from entering the abyss.  The hope for a future without great pain. A future of possibilities for healing, second chances, for love.  With each passing day the distance between myself and the abyss becomes greater and the desire to live strong deeper.  I am not sure where to go from here, or what tomorrow will hold all I know is that although the abyss can be appealing I promise I won’t fall to its temptations.

I cried on my way home, I don’t believe I ever told you that.  I had so much happening in my life that was overwhelming and somehow spending time with you brought a calm that I needed badly. We didn’t talk much those two days after I  got back and before you came over. There were many reasons but the main one was I was trying to convince myself that I didn’t like you.  I came across cool and collected as though I didn’t have the million neurons firing inside saying “there is just something about this man”. 
You drive over to the “Westside” on a Wednesday.  We met in the Costco parking lot and I took you to my “stomping grounds” and showed you some of my favorite things like the Tenino Quarry.  We ate lunch at Don Juans Mexican Kitchen my absolute favorite Mexican food establishment. I took you back to your truck and we made plans for the next day.  I can’t explain the connection we had from the very beginning what I do know is that it was instantaneous for both of us and I wish I had found you so much earlier in life.
We spent the entire day together just enjoying each other and getting to know one another better. The day flew by and it was time for you to go home.  When it was time to go you had bought me a beautiful bouquet of Roses and Lilly’s, two cards ( one playful and one silly) and a stuffed monkey.

It was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done.  I can still see you standing next to your truck telling me how you didn’t know what we would be in each other’s lives but that “for as long as we were, you were going to show me how much I deserved to be treated like a princess.”
I had even told you that day that “I wasn’t willing to put all my eggs in one basket” as I had just ended a long unhealthy marriage and I needed to make sure I wasn’t getting caught up in the moment.  Oh the things I said that I really did not mean. I didn’t want you to leave and I could hardly wait for the next time we would see each other.  You were carving out a special place in my heart Jeremy. A place that will remain yours from the moment we met until the end of time.  You were my Prince charming and I am beyond grateful for the privilege of meeting you.

When I was a child I use to have this reoccurring dream of being in a void. A darkness with just myself a small thin q-tip like figure and a giant cotton ball. The cotton ball was rolling towards me and with each roll it would get bigger and I would get smaller. The large cotton ball would eventually fill the void in the room with itself and just as it was to completely encompass the void which would include me I would wake up.

Walking through the aftermath of death feels like that dream only without the ability to wake up and realize it was a dream. The loneliness you feel is unbelievable. No one knows how to be there for you so instead you will find they aren’t. Your heart has been removed thrown, beaten, bruised ,torn and trampled and you are left to pick up the pieces alone. Death is unfair and unkind. It will bring you to your knees and leave you gasping for air.

I didn’t know it was possible to bear so many emotions at one time. I didn’t know that with great love ultimately would mean great loss. There are many things in life you are unprepared for marriage, babies, raising children. People can share their experiences but until you’ve experienced it first hand you can’t really understand. But I think that although many people have experienced and lived through it death is wholly and completely intimate and unique. There are just so many factors. I don’t know if I will ever have the ability to live and love again. I don’t know if I will be able to mend my heart enough to trust putting it into another person’s hands to care for. What I do know is that death has no respect or concern for anyone or anything. It does not care about those it takes from. It sweeps in like a thief in the night and takes everything that is precious to you. And in its wake you are left to pick up the pieces of your life and attempt to mend them. Like shattered China.