u/xoRubyRogueox

I Wasn't Done

It hits on a normal Sunday, in the middle of dishes. It creeps in, slow at first, then all at once. Like an ice cold tide that turned into a title wave no one warned you about. Grief, there you are. 

You put the dishes down and brace yourself against the sink, your elbows locked in preparation. You remember this part. The familiar lump in your throat forms and for a moment, you feel as if breathing might cease and somehow it only gets faster. All at once you unravel like someone pulled the single heart string that held you together.

The tears fall in what feel like hundreds, your knees buckle in protest and the fall to the floor feels so slow. Your hand goes to your chest as if pressing against it might keep the inevitable shattering of your heart at bay, but it won’t. It never does. They were the glue that held it together. 

That’s how it goes, though. On a normal Sunday, in the  middle of doing the dishes, your heart remembers. There was someone it gave so much love to and had so much still left to give, that it doesn’t know what to do with the rest.

In the end, that’s all grief really is. It’s your heart saying, “Where did you go? I wasn’t done loving you, yet.” Because you can’t stop loving someone you were never prepared to lose.

One day they asked me, "How much do you love them?" They asked as if it could be measured, as if I was baking a cake and they wanted to know how much sugar I used.  It was like asking me if I knew how many grains of sand were on my favorite beach. I don't really have an answer, I just know it's my favorite.

"How much do you love them?", they ask With a look of expectation, waiting for an answer that made sense. as if they were requesting the current time on a normal Monday afternoon.  It was like asking me if I knew how many heartbeats I had heard while laying on your chest in the quiet. I don't know how many, but I know  each one somehow sounded better than the last, no matter how many times I heard it.

"How much do you love them?", they repeat. How do you answer that? How do you give an answer that has not been invented. "A lot" or  "So much" are words we use when asked how much we enjoy our favorite ice cream or movie, not for this.  I know what they asked, but what I heard was them asking me how many lifetimes with you would be enough. There wouldn't be. Infinite lifetimes could exist with you and I would somehow beg for another.

I finally settle on the only answer that makes sense," I love them more."

More than infinitely, more than forever and always a little more than they love me.