i fully retract the 'bastard' from that last post. and every other less than kind thing i've ever said or thought about you. i love you and i can't imagine the world's continued existence without your presence in it somewhere.
the worst was supposed to be over. i remember the day you were diagnosed. i remember the cold shock of those words as if it were yesterday, the feeling that i couldn't breathe, that i'd forgotten how to speak. you did all the talking and you asked me to be strong for you. what kind of a role reversal is that? and when we hung up, and i started to cry, and when i threw up, when i broke out in hives, when i almost crashed my car... i was convinced that it couldn't be real, that there'd been a mistake and we would be laughing in relief the next day. i mean, you'd turned 23 three days earlier. the universe can't really be that unkind.
but it wasn't a mistake, and the universe really is just that cruelly indifferent. so you were sick. but the understanding was, and is, and should be, that you were going to get better. that you'd convalesce, and you'd beat it, and all the plans we were making would be carried out beginning next summer. we're gonna go on a road trip to louisiana, and you're going to take me camping for the first time. we're gonna drive up the west coast and look for the aurora borealis. we're gonna go back to isla vista and commandeer a random couch, and we're gonna sit in the dark and talk the way we used to do in college, when we were drunk and together and happy more often than not. we'd known each other for three weeks before we decided that we're going to get married when we're old, remember? we're gonna get married and be grouchy old curmudgeons together, and sit on our porch and grouse and reminisce.
and then you got better, and the cruelly indifferent universe was full of light again, and the only thing between us and our reunion was my cold, because after all, you'd just beat cancer, you're understandably delicate. and once my cold was done, i would be down at your hospital or at your house once a week, and i'd read to you, and we'd watch movies, and talk all the time and count the minutes until we could be back in the world having adventures.
and now, my cold is gone, and soon you might be as well. and i don't know if i can deal with that. it's one thing to come to terms with death in a personal sense. tell me that i'll die two days from now, and i could handle that, and i could die laughing the way i plan to. but i've never thought about others dying, i've never had to or wanted to think about someone i love dying. i can't wrap my mind around the fact that however much you want to live, however much i want you to live- and i want that with all my being, every cell in my body needs you to be alive in order to function and be happy- it might not matter and you'll die, and what does that mean? it means i'll never hold you again, never kiss you again, that i'll never hear your voice again or smell your smell again. it means the world will be missing one of its better assetts, one pillar of compassion and positivity. it means that our plans will never come to fruition, that all the things i never told you won't get said, all the things we could have been, you could have been, will never be, and what does that mean? what does it mean and what does it mean? it doesn't make sense, it can't be.
but dan says that it very well can be, and i'm not sure it's getting through to me. you can't die. i can't live if you die. i can't deal with "one or two weeks at most" and "i'll let you know if we get to visit one last time." one last time? what is that supposed to mean, because you can't go anywhere, not ANYWHERE. we have things to do, people to be. i love you. i've loved you probably since the day i met you. even when i hated you, i loved you. i can't imagine a future without you. i can't imagine putting you in the ground, leaving you alone. i can't do it. i won't do it. this is not how this story ends.
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