[Content warnings: loss, grief, death.]
Often, it’s the small things we remember about the ones we loved and lost. The color and shape of their eyes. The sound of their laugh. The inflection of their voice as they told us they love us.
“Ich liebe dich”, A. said suddenly, almost bluntly, matter-of-factly, for the first time to me ever, as we were sitting across the high kitchen table from each other that evening.
“Ja, ich auch”, I replied.
We had been arguing because of something they had done, unthinkingly, “behind my back”, that made me lose trust in them and thus feel hurt. And the pain came out as anger. I can remember the cause of the argument and my feelings, not really the details of the argument. But the inflection of our voices in their “Ich liebe dich” and my own “Ja, ich auch” is still crystal clear to me.
I can remember so clearly, so vividly, how they looked at me and said “Ich liebe dich” again that last night we spent together, our last night of lovemaking.
Or the sweet peck on the lips they gave me saying, “Bis morgen”, as I got ready to ride home on my motorcycle the day before I found out about my father’s death.
Or the sunflowers, the sunflowers everywhere, since those were the months when sunflowers blossom and bloom here. And how A. talked about gathering sunflower seeds to roast them and eat them together – which we never got a chance to do. For months after A.’s departure & return to Europe, sunflowers haunted me, like a blade twisted in my wound, they reminded me of them so much.
Or the violent summer thunderstorm and pouring rain the afternoon before they left and went back to Europe, and the hot shower we had together, for the first & last time, at their place afterwards.
I cannot remember what we had for dinner that night. But I can remember that storm, that shower, the shifting emotions, the lovemaking.
As I can remember the first text message from them that finally made me think that there might actually be something non-platonic in their interest towards me, as they wrote explicitly that their “bed was big enough for two”, in case I needed to sleep over when I drove them home after we went out dancing together on that night in May.
I can remember how they cupped their hands over my “new” chest on that first morning we woke up in the same bed, their bed, together.
I can still remember how their hair felt in my fingers – so soft, so silky.
And I can remember their eyes, their beautiful, teardrop-shaped, clear green eyes – maybe the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen – so sweet, so full of love and joy, smiling or, sometimes, welling up with tears. Their eyes, the window into their soul: a soul they shared with me, a soul that reached out to touch me, to hold me.
That beautiful soul that touched mine.
The Little Prince and the Fox 