When Time Only Heals so Much – a Month Without Her

I almost forgot what day it was.
I knew it was Friday (who ever forgets a Friday?), but I had been ignoring the day; the number, that number, that reminder.

You’ve been gone for a month, now.
There are days where sometimes I am overwhelmed with sadness and I sit and cry. I don’t know why it overcomes me or where the reminder emerges from, but it can take me over and for a few moments, my face is wet with salty tears and my heart pains me in my chest – tightening, turning, aching.

There are constant reminders of you.
Your photograph watches me as I sit and type this; your face smiles at me from these paper memories of you. I look down at my fingers and you are there, embracing them, these gold fragments of your existence. I touch my neck and there you are again, wrapped around me. I glance to the corner of my desk, and again you are there, angelic pieces of you and your life, all reminding me.  My mirror, showing me a part of your legacy; you live in me, I am a part of you, an Amendola, a reflection of your life well-lived.
But they are not you. And again, I sink into sorrow.

But love is a very powerful thing, and no one I know loved with as much force as you did. Love is that part of a person that truly lives on after they’ve died. I am grateful to have been loved so deeply and powerfully by you, because it is that which turns those forlorn minutes into grateful hours, and cheek-aching smiles.

And I know this, deep in my heart, I do know this to be true, but I miss you. Beyond all this, I really, really miss you.

I wish I could pick up the phone and  call you and tell you. I tried; the woman’s automated voice told me that your number doesn’t exist – “Sorry,” she said – and your loss was real, yet again.

I know that you are free – from pain, from suffering, from earthly cares – but, I’ve said it before, I am so selfish. And I’m sorry for that.

I just really miss you.
A month has healed few wounds.
Today will endlessly remind me of that.

xo
C