Well, it’s almost graduation time and you’re still dead. Some things never change, eh?
Ha. A little death humor. Did you like that?
I don’t know why I still do this. It’s something beyond stupid, you know? Like there’s any way you can possibly hear me. Alex probably has a long-ass interpretation of the exact motives behind this, but I guess I’ll never know, since I’ll never ask him. I guess I’ll just have to wonder forever. Or I could crack one of his Psych books.
Nah, I’ll just wonder forever.
Since I’m operating on the basis that you can hear me (I am talking to you, if only in my mind), let’s take a wild step further and think that maybe you can see me too. Have you been watching me? Knowing you, you’ve probably been staking out the shower. That’s fine. However you want to get your kicks in the Great Beyond is fine with me.
Ha. A little more death humor. I do know what Alex would call this behavior -- a classic defense mechanism. He rags on me all the time about it, says I use humor as a shield, especially when I’m nervous. Which I guess is true tonight.
Anyway, were you watching me this afternoon? If not, here’s the highlight -- Brian told me he loved me.
Here’s one of the few Truths that I know -- I loved you. I did, with everything I was. Everything. My head, my toes, my soul, my body, my heart, everything. I would have done anything for you. You were a part of me.
And when you were gone it was like I had lost that part of me. Was it like that for you too? Because I always think it must be hard to die. It must be hard to leave people behind, even if you are in Heaven. I guess that shows my narrow mortal mindset, huh? I suppose I can’t even grasp what Heaven is, how it transcends petty things like a teen love affair.
Our love wasn’t petty, though. Was it? No, it wasn’t. That’s another Truth I know. It was real. It was too imperfect to be anything but. We fought, we cried, and we were furious with each other. But we were always real with each other. Even if we couldn’t be like that with anyone else in the world. We were that. It’s rare to find someone you can be real with.
Where was I? Oh, yes. You being dead and me missing part of myself. Depressing? It was. You made me alive and I was suddenly dead inside. I remember reading this quote in this book I read for an English class -- Cane, I think it was, by Jean Toomer. There was this part where a woman says she has tried to make everyone around her happy, and this guy answers, “Happy, Muriel? No, not happy. Your aim is wrong. There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them. No one should want to. Perfect joy, or perfect pain, with no contrasting element to define them, would mean a monotony of consciousness, would mean death.” I memorized that. Are you proud of me? It was always impressive to me how you could just rattle off Joyce and Faulkner. But I’m getting off track.
Anyway, I read that and its truth hit me. That’s what you and I were. That’s what you gave me, what we gave each other. We were joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in a way that we could never isolate one from the other. We were love, we were alive. And with you gone, all that joy, all that beauty, all of it disappeared. I was dead.
Sigh. Isn’t this uplifting? But it’s the truth. And I want to make you understand how this happened. I want to make me understand how this happened.
How did it start? Notes. It started with notes. Not the love kind, but the other kind which you were just as unfamiliar with -- the kind you take in class to study later. One day in my Sosh class, he -- Brian -- walks up to me and asks to borrow my notes. And I was all nervous and flustered and dropped stuff -- did all the stupid things girls do. Or rather, all the stupid things a girl does when she’s attracted to a guy, and, like me, unaccustomed to the feeling.
This was . . . oh, just under three years after the accident. And never in that time had I really been attracted to someone. I mean, I wasn’t blind. I still thought some guys were cute. But I never felt anything, never felt that special pull inside towards another person. For a whole two years I didn’t feel it. I thought it was gone forever.
And then this guy walks up to me and it happens again. This guy who’s not much taller than I am, wears glasses, and just reeks of intellectualism walks up to me and I FEEL it. I almost keeled over. I wasn’t a complete ditz -- I gathered myself and gave him the notebook -- but I felt like one.
Long story short -- he called me. That night. And without the physical presence, I found myself able to speak coherently again. And we talked, really talked, in a way I hadn’t with anyone outside of Alex and Liz since the accident. By the way, they’re doing good. Give Isabel and Max my regards. But anyway, we talked for a long time. And arranged to get together the next day so he could return the notebook.
Let me be clear here -- IT WAS NOT A DATE. Or it wasn’t supposed to be. It was merely a transaction of academic material, nothing social. I would have gotten it back in class, but we had an exam coming up and I needed it back. And he said it was ridiculous for me to come all the way to the dorms to get it. We decided to meet halfway, outside this cheap diner I would grab coffee in on my way to class.
And when we met, we decided to get a cup since we were there and it was freezing. We sat down and I wasn’t as flustered as before but still felt that pull. For the first time in what felt like forever, that part of me was alive again.
Want me to be honest? I have been so far, so why break the trend?
I liked it.
Does that make me a terrible person? At first I thought it did. I was walking home and felt like shit. Like something lower than shit. You think of the lowest of the low -- I felt like it. Because no matter how much I ragged on Liz in high school about the whole starry-eyed soulmate thing, I guess part of me believed it, believed that there was only one real love. When I was in high school, when I was with you, I thought I loved you more than anything in the world, more than I ever thought I could love someone. I thought I loved you so much that I used all my love up, that I would never be able to love someone as much as you.
But lately . . . lately I’ve been thinking about how wrong that wording is. How wrong it is to say you love someone more than you love someone else. “More than anything. More than anyone. As much as.” Because it’s not about more or less with love, I’ve been thinking lately. It’s about difference.
Liz’s love is like water. It’s cool and calm and soothing and I can’t live without it. It’s always there, even if I can’t see it, fluid at one moment and solid at the next.
Alex’s love is like sunshine. It brings light to dark places, and gives life to things that would otherwise wither away. It’s quiet and easy to take for granted and necessary.
Mom’s love is like the earth. It’s soft and firm and life-giving in a way that’s easy to ignore. It gives me something to stand on and supports through all endeavors.
Your love . . . your love was like a part of me. New but familiar at the same time, like we were made of the same stuff in different ways. I understood you and vice versa in a way that I think we both never thought possible. And when you were taken away, it was like losing an arm or a leg or an organ the importance of which I only truly grasped with its loss.
And Brian’s love . . . Brian’s love is like my breath. At first, it was like the first one you take after staying underwater for too long -- sudden, startling, and almost painful. Now it’s there always, gentle and invigorating. And I don’t think I could willingly go without giving it or getting it.
So that’s it -- my big confession. I love him. Not the way I loved you, but in a different way. In a way that’s not better or worse or more or less but just different. And I need it.
Will you forgive me? You can’t answer me, I know that now. But will you? Will you at least try? You’ve got a while up there to mull this over, to think about it, so will you? I don’t want you to hate me.
If I were you, I’d have a hard time not hating me. So if you do right now, know that I understand. Or maybe you met some hot chick up there and are having a grand ole time and this doesn’t really matter.
See? There. I felt it. A knot in my stomach at the thought of you being with someone else. Isn’t that terrible? I shouldn’t feel that. You’re dead, for Christ’s sake, and I’m (how I’ve dreaded these words) moving on. I understand if you hate me right now, I really do. And I know it’s a lot to ask of you to move beyond that (I don’t know that I ever could), but I am.
The thing is, he’ll probably ask me to marry him someday, and I’ll probably say yes. And I’ll be happy, Michael, because I love him. And I love him for the best reason of all -- I just do. And we’ll have kids and we’ll watch them grow and I’ll be glad that I decided to move forward.
Here’s another Truth I know -- I’ll always look back, Michael. You’ll always be there. There’ll always be a part of me missing, a part you took with you when you died, and a part that I’ll never get back. I’ll never be the Maria DeLuca I was when I was with you. Just as I probably never would have been the Maria DeLuca I am now had you lived. And it’s not a matter of better or worse, I realize now, but different.
I’m going to go now. It’s late. I’m never going to be able to get up with my alarm. Have I ever been able to? Anyway, I miss you, Michael. I love you, too. I always will.
Goodbye.
END
