Letter to Jeff, Day 376

 

Dear Jeff,

I was going to give up this crutch of writing to you, but here I am. I miss you terribly. I’d forgotten how I used to wake each morning with such expectation, thrilled to see you, thrilled to be with you. Your years of illness took their toll. I don’t know when that expectation turned to dread, and I woke never quite knowing what horrors the day would bring. Now there is neither expectation nor dread, just a heavy emptiness.

Light Bringer was published on the one-year anniversary of your death. I wanted so much for the book to burst on the scene to great acclaim, but sales have been disappointing. I don’t know whether I hoped success would offset the bleakness of losing you, or if disappointments are greater because I have to bear them alone. I’m glad I don’t have to tell you in person. I wouldn’t have liked burdening you with such bad news. There would have been more silence between us, and toward the end, there were already too many things we didn’t talk about, not wanting to bring more sorrow to each other.

I hope my writing you doesn’t keep you from going on to wherever you need to go, but I still need this connection to you. I still cry way too much, though the tears come in short bursts now rather than unending storms. I’m trying to keep hope alive, trying to believe that somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, things will work out for me, but how can they work out when you’re dead? The good things that happened were so much better when shared with you.

It’s so hard to believe that it’s over. I so yearn to talk to you once more, to see your smile, to fix one more meal together.

I’m glad you were able to do things your way at the end. I’ve heard such terrible tales of people regretting what they put their loved ones through in the hopes that the doctors could make them better. At least I don’t have that guilt.

I miss you. I love you.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.