A Thousand Pieces ~ Part Eleven

January 22

I woke up crying today. Achingly, painfully. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last, but by the time I was finished I felt something different inside me.

I'd taken myself back to that night last October when my world was picked up, turned around and smashed into a thousand pieces. I relived it, feeling the heartbreak as fresh and new as if I had been living with it for only moments instead of months. I remembered how I felt my soul torn out when I learned about the plane crash, no survivors: AJ was dead.

Dead.

I've learned that death is the most absolute and powerful force that exists. No one can escape it, and nothing can overcome it. Not even love.

I've struggled through my life since it happened, finding every new day an obstacle - stumbling forward slowly and trying to come to grips with the futility of anything and everything. It's taken me this long to realize that I'm not the only one who's been through this; I have people I can share my grief with. AJ's family, his friends, everyone who cares about me. I'm not as alone as it seemed at first.

I also have the memories, those all-important pieces of our lives, to keep AJ with me always. I have my writings in this journal; I have photographs; and most importantly I have filed away in my mind and heart every moment the two of us ever spent together, or even apart. In a way he still lives on inside me, for I will not let his spirit die.

I will never forget or mourn the period of my life he graced with his presence. Nor will I ever want to. He has taught me an important lesson - many, in fact. But the one I have sworn to remember is this: things don't go as expected. No matter how strongly, how passionately, how intensely you feel about something, you can't change fate. And you need to continue. You need to live.

This will be the last time I write in this journal. Because that's exactly what I plan on doing: getting out there and living my life. Just because that AJ has died doesn't mean that I have to. In fact, it's all the more reason to continue on. Life is so short, so fleeting. Why waste it?

I've been dead these past months. More dead to the world and to myself than even AJ has been. Yes - I've been selfish. It's easy to see that. But I've learned my lesson; I've changed. I think it's made me into a better person. If that's the only good that's come from this tragedy, then so be it. One positive effect is genuinely better than none at all.

The first time I ever truly lived was when I looked into AJ's eyes for that first second and felt time itself stop around me. Every day he brought something new into my world - a million precious gifts of wisdom, strength, love.

And my world is better for it. Even with him gone.

-Fini-

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