Dolor Comedenti

9/5/18 Dude. WORST FUCKING DAY IN A LONG TIME. 

The death earlier this year was buffered by your arrival on the same day. Or maybe I love you more. That’s what you’d like to hear, I’m sure. 

I’m totally in denial right now. I can’t imagine a world without you in it. Sounds so fucking cliche. There’s a reason for cliches. 

I asked your best friend to get me something of yours. Now I wish I’d specified a hat. Maybe that’s what he’ll give me. 

He’s broken. 

Your mom is broken. 

Jersey Shore found you…I bet that’s fucked him up. 

I can’t even describe what I feel. I think about your mannerisms and can’t quite grasp I won’t see them again. 

The nod. 

Hearing the “tst.” 

It can’t be real. 

Can’t. 

But it is. 

I know I couldn’t have saved you but I wonder still. Maybe if I’d answered last night, you’d at least be alive today. Maybe not much longer, but one more day would do me good. I didn’t see you for two weeks before you died. Our last parting was good—awkward, as always. 

I’m so glad I have those pictures of us. 

I downloaded your workout playlist in case your Apple Music disappears someday. 

I wish I had shady screenshots. 

I keep thinking you’re just away right now and I’m angry at you for relapsing but I’ll get to talk to you about it later. 

9/8/18 It’s been 4 days. 

I did get a hat. I got THE hat. 

Your best friend and Jersey Shore are in New Jersey right now. 

Your best friend is getting matching tattoos with your mom. It’ll be cool if Jersey Shore does too. Especially since he has none. 

I’m still in denial. I really don’t want you to be gone, if I could only wish you back. Me and California were talking about how we would give up limbs and organs (that we can go without) to have you back. Well, he said he definitely would. I said I hoped I would if somehow that was a possibility. 

I wonder where you are now. Do you exist? Everyone keeps talking about you’re in a better place and no more pain and all that shit. I can see now why people need those beliefs. Cause that IS comforting to think you’re just off somewhere and happy. 

But I also think about what you told me about the 15 minutes you were dead. The only way I can think of it was that you were seeing creation or the entire universe as it is. I feel like I have a visual of what you described. 

But what does it mean? 

I don’t think it was frightening because you were not scared to die. I don’t think. I feel like if you were, you would have been more careful with that last shot. So that’s cool. Whatever you experienced was not scary to you. 

Or maybe that’s me comforting myself. 

Goddammit Capp. 

Day 9 Well, I think I feel better. I still miss you like hell. But I’m not thinking of you every spare second anymore. I am still wearing your hat most of the time when I drive and it stays on my dashboard. I’ve been trying to work out regularly. I’m stressed at work. The boss is out of town and now a peer is too. So I’m doing part of both of their jobs. 

School is overwhelming. 

You’re not going to see my bridal photos and you’re not gonna see me get married and you won’t get to see the pictures from our trip to Belize that you asked about. 

I found out about the lady that bought you all your stuff. Kind of disappointed by that information? But I don’t see you differently…or I should say as less than you were. 

You inspired your girlfriend that only knew you a few weeks, to get a tattoo in your name. 

How the hell do you do that? 

11/6/18 I’m getting married in 5 days, Capp. Today has been hard for me. I wanted you there. Instead, there will be a picture of you. I miss you terribly. I thought I was getting better then another wave hit. 

I thought I was better. 

8/26/19 The one year anniversary of your death approaches and I’ve been trying to decide how I will celebrate you. I feel sadness creeping in but I want to celebrate who you were. I just have to figure out how to do that. 

It’s still so easy to pull memories of you forward from the Abyss (my pet name for my brain). I haven’t gotten close to any more people that I met the way I met you, after you, though. I  learn sometimes.  

It has been a rough year. I have struggled with severe depression, hopelessness, not wanting to live, more loss—more death and just loss, suffering, so much suffering and I  mark your death as the beginning. 

That also means that you are the beginning of my seeking serious spiritual growth. That’s an amazing way to remember you. 

You were so excited about A Course in Miracles and seeking to grow spiritually, it seems fitting that you began my downward spiral (I love you, Trent) that led me to my current spiritual path. 

I described you to someone that asked me to. 

It was my therapist. 

She said I was describing someone that sounds like me. 

We both have an empty place inside that we’re just trying to rid ourselves of.