Today marks the 5th year anniversary of my fiance Valerie’s death. I don’t have the spoons to really talk about it. Maybe tomorrow.
I always have nightmares about it, but for the past week, I’ve been having daymares too. I’ve been living and seeing both worlds, the present and past. On Monday I caught myself saying to a friend: “I find her today. Tomorrow she will be pronounced brain dead. Wednesday she will die.”
The past is in the present tense. So am I.
Friday would have been my fiance Valerie’s 40th birthday. She passed away suddenly on January 24th, 2013.
It still haunts me. I don’t think that you ever get over something like that. I don’t think you should.
I visited the grave, as I do every other month or so. I brought her a cake. I sang Happy Birthday and left a toy on her grave, this time a Wonder Woman figure. It suits her.
I know that it means nothing to her. How could it? If she could talk, she would tell me to stop. She’d tell me to let go.
Fuck letting go.
On Tuesday it was four years since Valerie died. I admit, it’s getting easier to accept, though I still had a good cry on the way home from the grave. Certain songs still trigger tears, and I dream about those days around her death several times a week. I live them over and over: a twisted Groundhog’s Day with no conceivable end. There is no end to Love when it’s snatched away.
She smoked menthols. Newports, I think, but they might have been Newport Lights, or 100s. It’s been almost four years, and these details have faded away.
She liked to wear black, but she had this tan, plaid skirt that she wore a lot. It looked good on her, but everything did. I loved how she did her makeup: dark eye shadow against pale foundation. It made those dark eyes stand out, but even on sleepy mornings, makeup free, long hair a mess, yawning and staggering out of bed in her Pac-Man pajamas that said “Eat Me,” her eyes always stood out. Maybe it was an illusion because I loved her so, but I don’t think it was. She was real, and her love held me together at a time when I was crumbling apart.
Tomorrow is Valerie’s birthday, and she will not be around for it. Val died in January of 2013. She is forever 35. She will not grow old like me. She will not grow old with me. She is permanently young in my memories, getting smaller in my rear view, details fading away.
But I know that she smoked menthols.
Today Mercy College’s English Department has its induction ceremony for the English Honors Society, also known as Sigma Tau Delta. Part of the ceremony is an award called The Valerie Z Lewis Award for Excellence in Creative Writing. I will be there to witness this, as I am and will every year.
Valerie was my girlfriend. She passed away very suddenly and tragically in January of 2013. Even after 3 years, the wound is fresh. I doubt that it will ever truly heal. Val was a fantastic writer, published in many literary journals, and a lecturer at Mercy. After her death, I compiled her published works into an anthology, where the proceeds go toward this award. Mercy is also considering setting up a lit magazine with some of the money. I know that Val would love that. She would be humbled, maybe even embarrassed, at the award, but she was always dedicated to her students. Giving them a chance to see their names in print, that’s something she would be proud of.
I have so much gratitude that they set up this award in her name. All people die, but something like this gives a slice of immortality. To be mortal, yet live forever. Can anyone hope for more?
I’ll be there, and I might cry. I’m always on the verge there. But I feel no shame. It hurts, it will always hurt.
Sometimes hurt is beautiful.
I wrote this yesterday, but I wanted to share it because it’s still hurting me. I expect that this will only get worse with time.
January 24th, 2013, 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days ago, my partner Valerie died. There was very little warning. She had just started her PhD in Writing at Binghamton, and I went up to visit her. The change from seeing her several times a week to rarely was getting to me. Our plan was that as soon as my lease was up, I would move there with her.
When I got there, she was seizing on the floor. She died 2 days later. It was a drug interaction between on old medicine and a new birth control.
I was visiting her to propose.
I’ve been an emotional mess all day, and I can’t stop weeping (there’s so more pathetic sound than a grown man crying). I think that today was some important milestone for me and Val, but I can’t remember what it was.
I’m losing my memories of her, one precious moment at a time. I have trouble remembering her voice, her scent, even the little giggle-dance she’d do when she was happy. I can’t remember which tattoo was where. She’s becoming a dream, where you wake up in the morning and only recall wisps and ideas. She was real, but she’s becoming imaginary, and there’s nothing I can do.
The things you remember hurt less than the things you forget.
Note: I think that I remember what that milestone was. Four years ago yesterday was the day that I first told Val that I loved her. I still can’t remember for sure. It doesn’t matter, she’s still fading away.
Tomorrow would’ve been Val’s 38th birthday. It’s still her birthday, even though she’s not around to celebrate it anymore.
It’s been a while since I talked about her. It’s still hard.
Valerie was my girlfriend, serious enough that we both knew marriage was our future. She died suddenly on Jan 24th 2013, due to complications from medicine. I was the one that found her. I was planning to propose that night.
I watched a little too much South Park last night, including the ones with Butters/Prof. Chaos. I have decided that he is my arch enemy. As one friend said, “I’ve never met anyone as clenched as you.”
I like his cape though.
I wasn’t always this way. I used to be very easy going, mellow, all loosey goosey hippy blah blah blah. Then my mother died. Then my girlfriend, Valerie died. Then something inside of me died. I need to have everything in its place.
I recently found out why during therapy: Both people died when I wasn’t there. I turned my back, and they were gone. My mother was on vacation when she died. Valerie had just moved to Binghamton to get her PhD is Writing. I went to visit her, and I found her on the floor. Two days later–two years as of tomorrow–she was dead. I still adore her, and I’m madly in love with her ghost.
The world is Chaos and conspires to destroy us, and all we can do is carve out a little piece of happiness while we can, before it’s taken away.
Maybe the Crab People should be my arch enemy. They don’t have capes.
See? No capes.
Like my posts? Follow my website or “Like” my facebook fan page and/or follow me on Twitter. You can also purchase my debut novel, Song of Simon, at any online bookstore or a real one (you’ll probably have to order it). Of course, you can always buy an autographed one from me, just send me a message. Song of Simon currently has a 4.7/5.0 rating on Amazon, so people seem to like it. If you’re looking for something FREE, you can read my serial (soon to be an expanded series of novels) The Watchmage of Old New York. Though it ended in February, it remains one of the most popular serials on JukePop OF ALL TIME!
I don’t write many personal posts anymore, but something happened this week that shook me so bad, I’m still in “Crisis Mode.”
For a little over two months now, I’ve been dating someone. Things have been great, and I’ve final found someone that I have a connection with. It’s the first person that I’ve felt this way about since Valerie died.
Most of you don’t know: My girlfriend Valerie Z. Lewis passed away very suddenly on January 24th, 2013. In two weeks, it’ll be two years. She had recently moved to Binghamton, NY, to get her PhD in Writing (she was an incredible writer. You can find her novels and collected short stories on Amazon. The revenue goes to Mercy College’s Valerie Z. Lewis Award for Excellence in Creative Writing), and I was soon to follow.
I went to visit her, and I found her on the floor. Two days later, she was dead. I died with her.
I’ve dated since then, but this is the first time that I’ve found someone. It took me two years to get over the fear of opening up to someone, only to see them die.
So when my current gf started shaking and seizing in my apt, when she couldn’t breathe and her left side fell limp, it was my worst nightmare coming true. I moved with alacrity I didn’t know I had, calling 911 with one hand while keeping her shaking body from injuring herself with the other. I wrapped her in one of my giant hoodies and held her, begging her to hold on, trying to keep her coherent with reassurance.
On the inside I was dying all over again.
They still don’t know what’s wrong. She’s slept most of this week, and still twitches. I’m terrified to leave her alone. If I wasn’t there, I don’t know if she would’ve lived.
Maybe I’m cursed. Dating me is poison. I’m already broken, and losing another will destroy me. I’m not strong enough anymore, if I ever was.
Hey everyone. I just wanted to say that Valerie’s anthology is now in kindle and paperback.
Here are the links.
You know how I feel about her work. Remember that the profits are going to the Mercy College scholarship in her name.
Keep her work alive.
casandersdotnet 