On Grief...

There are five supposed stages of grief: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Not everyone is afforded the ability to go through each stage only once and there is no time limit on how long you stay in each stage. Every loss is different. Every grief has its own weight. Not all of us know what 'acceptance' feels like. 

In February of 2010 I lost my soul mate. 

A soul mate is often defined as a romantic partner, with implication of an exclusive lifelong bond. It is typically used to refer to someone's spouse or lover. It is widely accepted that each person has one soul mate. You are blessed if you are able to find the one person you fit with completely. There is no doubt in my mind that "RJ" was one of my soul mates. We fit together with such ease that it often seemed unreal. Speaking was like listening to my innermost thoughts and loving RJ was the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. I can't remember a time before RJ and, quite frankly, I don't want to. That's why I cycle through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression over and over and over. It's been more than three years and I just can't find it in me to accept it. I believe that each person is a soul and each soul has the chance to live again. I have been places foreign to this body, but that I recalled like the back of my hand. I have met people whose words made my heart ache with want though this body had never met them. I wait every single day for RJ to walk back into my life. I greet every person with a smile and every day with hope in my heart. Maybe if I hope enough it will happen. 

When we hadn't spoken in a few weeks, I knew something was wrong. RJ lived in Arizona and I never had the chance to go visit. We were inseparable though and it wasn't like RJ to avoid me. I had called, texted, and messaged RJ without a response. I broke down thinking I had done something wrong. RJ was mad at me and I was going to lose him. The hardest part of this story is admitting that I found out on facebook that my best friend had died. Someone took a photo and RJ was tagged up in the sky. People were saying they missed RJ and on his birthday they said they wished he was here. I shook as I typed in RJ's name into google with the word "obituary" after it. I closed my eyes and I prayed that I would come up empty. I clenched my fists and my jaw and hoped with every fiber of my being that there would be nothing to read because everything was fine and RJ just hated me. That would have been so much easier to handle. I could hardly see through the tears when I read about how RJ was loved. When they said RJ "touched everyone she met and brought joy to everyone who knew her", I was lost to my grief. I remember the way I crumpled up on my bed; the pain crushing everything inside of me until I couldn't bare to sit up. I cried until my body shook and my voice was hoarse and still I cried for my love. I felt like a thousand heated blades had gone through me. At that point in time the term soul mate was more true than ever before. I could tell I had lost a part of me. I knew I would never recover from this. My tears were dry but still my body cried, my voice cried, my heart cried out with the news. I wanted nothing more than to wrap myself up and simply cease to exist. I thought that if I lay still enough, if I were consumed with my heart ache then God would have pity on me and just let me melt into nothingness. There was no past and no future for me. All there was, was RJ, and I desperately wanted to be with him again.

The following days blended together as I tried to convince myself it wasn't true. We didn't live in the same state so it would be easy for it to be fake. I googled, and googled, and just found listing after listing of the obituary. I tried to very politely ask RJ's sister what had happened. Either by her own grief, denial, or desire for privacy I never got an answer. I can honestly say that instead of anger, my second stage was investigation. I searched every conversation, every voicemail, every secret RJ had sent me and while I will never know how RJ did it, I know without a doubt that it was suicide. I spent a very long time blaming myself for this. I knew I had given RJ every ounce of my love, my time, and my hope. I knew I had given RJ reason after reason as to why he should stay. I knew I would have picked up. I would have ran away to the greyhound and made it to Tucson if it meant RJ would still be here today..but in those days after RJ's death, I couldn't think of any of those things. All I could muster was a laundry list of things I didn't or couldn't have done to prevent it. I turned myself into a monster because that was the easiest way to handle the fact that RJ's death was 100% preventable. I swear to you the sun has never shone properly since then. I promise Summer will never smell as sweet and rain will never comfort me the way it used to. 

I'll admit the one thing I regret is that I kept RJ mostly to myself. We had some mutual friends but I never told my friends at home or my boyfriend or my family about RJ. Part of it was that we made sense together. It seemed wrong to speak about us as two separate entities because to me, we were always one. Part of it was that I was selfish. RJ was so incredible, so easy to love, that I thought if I shared him, I could never call him mine again. The biggest part though, was that I feared no one would understand RJ. RJ was a lot of really beautiful things that people universally love, but he was also transgendered and struggled with drugs. I never once judged RJ for these things but I worried the World would not be so kind. In fact, I knew his family hadn't been so kind and that was a big part of his pain. To try and protect RJ from all of that, I simply kept our friendship to myself. I would drop a call, leave an event early, or turn down dinner just to talk to RJ but I never mentioned him to anyone else until after I lost him. I felt so alone in my pain because of the choices I had made. I wanted so badly to reach out and talk to somebody about RJ. I wanted to remember all the amazing things about RJ and smile and, just once, not be reduced to tears. It's been over three years and I cry on his birthday and on the day he died. Every year. Alone. I often experience something and all I want to do is curl up on the phone with RJ and tell him all about it. I never felt total joy until I told RJ. I never felt anger like when I told RJ. I never felt complete without RJ. 

In those late nights, when RJ shook with detox and cried into the phone, we promised we would get matching tattoos. He called me his chrysanthemum and I would sing to him and I swear our pains would combine into something beautiful and I would help him heal, just a little. After I lost RJ, I wanted to find a way to keep him with me all the time. When I thought about his face and his love, I pictured wild flowers. I was laying in a field with the warm rain on my skin and all I could see for miles was flowers. The Summer after, my step dad and I got tattoos. My parent's rule was always that it would need to be easy to conceal and my rule was black and white only. When the idea came to me, all the rules went out the window. I wanted people to see my tattoo and smile. I wanted it to be so beautiful that strangers took note. Unlike my other tattoo, I wanted to see this every single day. I went in to get something the size of a 50 cent piece and walked out with a big, bold, colorful sunflower...and I cried. Nothing had felt more perfect. RJ was my chrysanthemum, my rose, my daisy, my sunflower. Many people have flower tattoos and many other people cannot stand tattoos at all. I have seen people stop and stare at my sunflower. I have had people tell me it's the only tattoo they have ever liked. I have had people say they want the same one. It's not that intricate and it's not something you'd think people would notice. I completely believe that what people feel when they see it is a fraction of the love we shared. I think they feel the presence of RJ's beauty when they see it, and they can't help but love it. RJ brought a light and a love into my life that I have not experienced since. I have no way to go back in time and wrap him in my arms and keep him safe from the World. All I have is a small reminder of who he is and what he brings to me. I feel a little more whole every time I glance down at my flower. He keeps me grounded. I will never let his light die. 
*"RJ" is a pseudonym that I picked to protect the identity of my friend. The confusing use of "her" when referring to the obituary is because it is a direct quote from the obituary and RJ was biologically born a female. I used the male terms otherwise to fit with how RJ identified.*