'til death do us part?

Babe -

I miss you so much it hurts.  I just don’t know how to go on without you.  There are days I wake up and I’m confused; I don’t even know which reality I am in - earth 1 or earth 2.  Some days, I wake up and think you are alive, laying right next to me.  On other days, I wake up feeling so scared and lost-- so empty.  Where living is too painful; literally unbearable.  It’s so hard to accept that you are not here with me anymore-- I can barely breathe.  I’m too scared to stand still where all I feel is pain and anguish, yet too scared to move forward in a world where you are not walking with me by my side and holding my hand.  I look to my right and there is nobody there anymore.  No one to hold my hand.  No one to give me that warm beautiful smile.  No one to say, “I love you too.”  It’s like your brother said, “I don’t ever want to get comfortable with S being gone.”   

But, I also know that it would hurt you so much to see me like this; crying myself to sleep at night and to wake up dazed and confused about what is real and what is not.  Whenever I cried, you would always say to me, “I can’t stand to see you cry - it hurts me too much.”  And you would walk over and give me the biggest hug as you wipe away my tears and tell me how much you love me.  (yes babe, of course I used it to my advantage from time to time to win fights with you -  if I could tell I was losing a fight, all I would have to do was cry and you would walk over and give me hug, wipe away my tears, tell me how much you love me, and apologize, even when I’m wrong.)  I know you would want me to be strong, but it’s just so hard right now.  You are the love of my life, and we were supposed to grow old together.  Remember when we were in Tulum, Mexico, we saw an elderly couple walking hand in hand holding up the foot traffic, you pointed them out to me and said, “That will be us, holding up the traffic on a tour and not giving a care in the world about it either.”  That’s supposed to be our story, not this one.  We were supposed to grow old together and still look into each other's eyes after decades of marriage like we had just fallen in love for the first time.  Whenever I saw you with your dad, and notice how much you both resemble each other and how similar your ways and mannerisms were, I would always look at your dad and think to myself, “That’s my future.”  But now that future is gone - shattered.  Never ever to be again.

The monks that came to the house to do the blessing for your safe passage into the spiritual world said that death is inevitable, it either happens now or later, but it’s not something that one can avoid.  They told me that in order for you to move on to your next life and get reincarnated, we both have to let each other go so we both can move forward into our next journey-- me in the physical world and you in the spiritual world.  If we can’t let each other go, then neither of us could move on and you would linger and get stuck in purgatory unable to go onto your next life.  I know that I have to let you go, since it would be selfish to want you lingering in purgatory waiting for me so that I could have you by my side in spirit; but it’s just so hard also.  How do you say goodbye and let go of the love of your life, the one person who knows you inside and out - better than you know yourself?  The person you committed with to be your life partner, through sickness and health.  And even in death, you do not want to part.