August 1, 2011

This week is my last week of memories of/with Chantz. It's almost unbelievable to me.

This is the last picture I took with Chantz a year ago today. We spent our day at the lake with friends, wakeboarding, drinking, and riding the water tube. We had gone the week before but Chantz hadn't been able to get the board up, and on this day he successfully did it. I remember the second he finally stood up we could all see that his face lit up like one of a kid in a candy store...and a moment later, he made the face of someone who persistently keeps trying to get a result, and when he finally does he doesn't know what to do with himself. So he just let go. It was actually hilarious to see it play out. That last weekend with him was really beautiful. I remember shortly after he died not being able to understand how things could be so wonderful one moment and completely destroyed the next. I kept going over and over in my head how impossible it seemed that a week earlier we had taken his little cousins to Six Flags and spent the whole day taking care of them, even talking about how it would be when we had children one day...and then, he was just gone.
I don't think I'll be able to fully grasp how life can change that drastically in the blink of an eye, but now I am able to look back on that wonderful last week I had with him.

The Wednesday of that week Chantz also washed my car. We were both in the garage as he was cleaning the inside when a song came on the radio, and we started slow dancing. He even twirled me a couple of times, which is saying something, because I am the worst follower. Ever.
He said  that this was one of his happiest moments. That his life was finally coming together, and that I was there to share it with him. It's always been a little funny to me that people think the most romantic moments consist of the grand and planned out gestures. Don't get me wrong..they're wonderful, but give me moments like these for the rest of my life. The simplest moments can be so authentically beautiful. I still hold on to that moment often, it makes me ache, but at the same time be entirely thankful to know that I will always be able to remember it.



the robot

The last week of his life, Chantz was working on his last week of his paid  internship. I remember he was really excited because he was working with nano-technology, one of his most favorite things, and he was getting to build a robot and making connections with the PhD's running that specific course. We were also in the process of getting ready to move in that weekend, something we were also really excited about and even planning on having a housewarming party for shortly after. When he died, my hoped-for future died, too...from the smallest of things, like my plan to surprise him with post-it notes all over the apartment with a reason why I loved him on each one..to the bigger things, a future that I never even had and feel that I lost. It's only begun with this year, and continuing on from here, but living with this loss has meant taking on new roles, new relationships, a new future- without obviously forgetting the past. Something I'm barely embracing, and a hard thing to balance at times
.
I'm somewhat fearful of this coming week; I am afraid that in a way I will be mentally reliving those last days. Asking myself questions I know I wont ever be able to solve...remembering things I buried deep inside....but mostly, I am afraid that it will feel like I am losing him all over again. And after that, that I will be in the same spot I was the day after his death. I keep telling myself that this part must be "normal" as well...whatever the hell that means, but I really have nothing to base it off of. There were many times I told myself that surely I wouldn't survive, and thus far, I am still here. I think the biggest thing that this one year mark will bring is that instead of my grief being tied to a certain day or the approach of certain days, it will just be there. The reality of his absence will just be here all the time...not in a haunting way, but perhaps as a reminder to live beautifully. To love as much as I can. That he existed, and just because he doesn't anymore, it doesn't change what we did have at some point in time. But for now, I just keep reminding myself to take it one step at a time, and keep breathing lest I overwhelm myself with all of this.

If you ever think that your absence won't be felt a year after your death, consider the fact that that's probably the biggest lie you've ever said to yourself.