THE Days

Day 1841.

Last week I turned 60.
How the fuck did that happen?

My birthday is tethered to the memory cycle of Luke’s death and the significant events that surround that time.

“It’s not just THE day, Mum”
I had not consciously noted it, but George expresses it so well as he recounts to me the various events that tug at him:

“The day that I arrived in Boston”
“The day I first saw your faces.” yes ..
“The day I first saw your faces.”

“The day that we first saw Luke’s body“.
“The day Xander arrived” (His dearest friend).
“The day of the cremation“.
“The day of the London funeral”.
“The day of the Los Angeles funeral“.
“The stillness that followed“.

I don’t remember the dates, but he does, 
and somehow my body does too.

Small shocks fire in my body, but I have no semblance of the specifics to which they relate, instead just a rolling set of images that have no anchor… faces, odd phrases, fragments of memory… a puzzle that has yet to be assembled, or not.

We celebrated my birthday with close friends, authentic joy and delicious food.
The celebration rolled over the entire past week, although I was constantly exhausted beyond logic and I knew not why.

And tonight I was taken to dinner by wonderful girlfriends and we laughed and drank and ate and it was lovely
And then..

As I sit alone on the sofa recalling the joyous evening,
the acceptance of Luke’s story, my story, our story… cracks.

The subconscious effort to hold the dam of acceptance, the source of my exhaustion, is now clear, as I yield,
to leave me thrashing 
in sleeplessness and deep nausea, 
now culminating in finally… a sobbing so deep.

My makeup from earlier stains my tears as they course down my face to blemish this page, as I sink into a hopeless sorrow.
I am unravelled and I don’t resist.

So, what is THIS day? THIS date? In the roll of dates from this time in 2016?

For it is not always the date that holds the pain, it is more often the day…
THE Saturday, THE Sunday.
So what is in THIS Thursday?

I can not recall, and somehow, there is no need to look it up…
because all I need to know is that it is today that my resolve and genuine sense of being loved, has dissolved into a familiar pool of desperation, shame and yearning beyond measure, as I surrender to my pain.

1841 days on, I am not afraid to allow the truth of my agony and despair through, because I now know that this squall will pass.
The calendar will turn to November and my well practiced ability to carry the immense and stabbing weight of the loss of Luke, as I travel through the world, will resume.

But for tonight, all is lost.
And that is somehow, just as it should be,
as I weep and the dawn breaks.