Seeing What I Once Was

Day 1457.

I am heading home for the anniversary of Luke’s death.

Adam has flown out to Texas to drive me home. We are sitting in a lovely restaurant in Austin and it should be lovely, but it is not.

A family sits directly across from me. She has 2 sons. My gaze is fixed. That used to be me.

They laugh and chat. Her dessert arrives, a candle atop. They sing and smile, it’s her birthday. Mine is soon.

I imagine what they are talking about. I wonder if her young boys will get caught up with drugs. Will she escape my fate?

The pain of what I have lost swells into my chest, my gaze still fixed, the tears fall.

I wonder if I can keep going.

Despite all that brings light to my life, here I am weeping, staring at a family in a restaurant, seeing what I used to be, seeing what my family used to be, seeing what I can no longer have, feeling like a used up shell of what I once was.

The sadness drowns me.