Page 43 of Make It Without You

It’s not hard to find his spot. He has fresh flowers and the grass around has been cut recently. The sun is just starting to set, showcasing a beautiful scene in front of a heartbreaking reality.

James Michael Hayes

Loving son, brother, and fiancé

November 9, 1991 - August 28, 2017

“Hi, baby.” I speak the two words I haven’t said since he passed. It’s like the band-aid around my heart is slowly peeling off. Letting the pain of his passing seep out. “I miss you so much. Can you believe we would be married? Two years and it feels like my life has been in a plateau state since you left. Colors are not as vibrant, the seasons are bland…I just—I feel like the joy in the little things left the day you left this world. I remember the day we got engaged. You did your best to prepare me if anything happened to you. And I was so mad at you for preparing me to make it without you.”

I sit down cross-legged in front of his headstone and let the tears come. “I moved to Cincinnati. I think I still did it as a way to feel closer to you. Holding on isn’t the best way to move forward, but it’s hard. I’m scared one day I’m going to forget everything. The sound of your laugh is the one thing I miss the most. Some days I think I can still hear it.”

The cool breeze rustles my hair as if it’s James telling me that it is okay for me to move on. That if I close my eyes I can hear his voice whenever I want to.

“I think I met someone. But he’s the Dad of one of my students. I know, it’s crazy. And I would never do anything that would ruin my chances of being a teacher. The girls keep telling me his son won’t be my student forever. I’m aware of that. But I’m scared of starting over. You and I experienced everything together. And having to make new experiences with someone else terrifies me. It’d be like erasing you from my past and doing so would make the future we could have had erasable.”

That’s the real issue. Starting over with someone newisterrifying. Having to learn their likes and dislikes, not just in a day-to-day life, but romantically as well. It terrifies me that I won’t find someone that I can mesh with seamlessly. “God, beingwith you was as easy as breathing. You made my heart race and I would still get butterflies when you walked through the door. That was a good thing and I’m realizing it’s a rare feeling that most people never get to experience. What if I never have that again?” I know it’s silly to base your love off of a feeling. But isn’t that love? Feeling something you’ve never felt?

I look at the time on my watch and realize I’ve been here for almost an hour. I know I need to go to my parent’s house. But knowing James is left behind makes it harder for me to get up. Yet staying will make it harder every time I come to visit with him.

“I wanted to say I love you. And not in the past tense. Because when you left, that love didn’t just go away. For so long there were times when I wished time machines existed so we could go back and stay in that little apartment forever. But at the end of the day, if I had to choose a more perfect goodbye for us, it would have been that way. We loved the only way we knew how. I miss you. And I always will. No amount of time can take that away.”

Getting up from the ground, I dust the dirt and grass off of my pants. Tears continue their descent down my face as I gaze at his headstone. Knowing his life could have been bigger than what he got.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” The final words come out as a whisper. I kiss the tips of my fingers and place them on the top of his headstone. My fingers fall back to my side and with one last glance at his resting spot, I turn and walk back to the car.

Kammy: How’s life back there?

Me: Feels like I’m fourteen again with how quiet this house is.

Kammy: I’m sorry, buddy.

I’m backin my old room for a couple of days. Honestly, I should have stayed in Cincinnati for the break. Curiosity is a terrible devil that got the best of me and I chose to come home, hoping that a different scene would greet me.

But my wishful thinking let me down. No food was being prepped, no TV to greet me or laughter from my parents…it’s like they chose to ignore this holiday. Hiding in their office to work until they couldn’t anymore.

While our relationship is slightly better than it was when I was in high school, it’s still not overly familial. We don’t randomly text or call to check in. It’s like we know we’re all related so we do the bare minimum.

So I’m up in the little room I brought James up to the first time we hung out. The room that overlooks the backyard, along with the Hayes’s backyard, and the stillness between the two is chilling. It’s as if no life has been lived for the past couple of years. It’s like this part of life has been frozen.

The ghost of my past life swallows me up. Memories from our time spent up here hit me at full force. Pictures of James and I decorate the wall and any available flat surface: ice cream shop napkins, my violin case collecting dust along the wall, and mementos that remind me of us threaten to suffocate me.

My throat closes up at the realization that coming back here was a mistake.

Running out of my room and away from the memories, I run into my dad in the hallway.

“Woah! Kiddo. Are you okay?” He steadies me with his hands gripping my upper arms to steady me.

I can’t speak. All I can do is shake my head as tears cloud my vision. My dad pulls me into his chest as the tears fall. I can’t do anything to stop them. The sobs of loss take over my body as the grief proves it never intended to loosen its hold on me. My dad continues to hold me in the upstairs hallway of the house. He’s never been an affectionate man but knowing that his daughter hasn’t stopped breaking for the last two years, has to break down some of his walls.

“I’ll never be able to understand what it’s like to lose someone the way you did. And I can’t say just move on and you’ll be fine.”

The tears refuse to stop. “Dad, it hurts. Every day my heart hurts.”

The ache that made itself known when James was taken still lets me know it hasn’t gone anywhere. Now I understand why some people stay widows. It’s hard to imagine your life without the one that made you whole.

“I know, pumpkin. One day, while the pain won’t go away, you’ll find someone to help carry the weight of it. And when that day comes, you’ll look in the mirror and smile when you see how your life turned out. It might not be with the boy you pictured, but it’ll be with someone who understands your pain and doesn’t make you try to mask it.” My dad’s voice has lost all of the boom as he comforts me.

I feel a presence at my back until I feel my mom sandwich me between them. These are the parents I wanted when I was a teenager. These are the parents who helped me live when living was the last thing I wanted to do.

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