Alone in Life...after Death

It has been just one day since Grand Grand died. I went to Mee Mee’s today to see her and my parents. I was scared to go but I asked Amy to go with me because I needed a friend beside me. At first, I was ok, even when I was asked how I was doing and I heard the first “I’m so sorry…” of what is going to be a long Sunday and Monday.

It was hard to look Mee Mee in the eye. I guess because when I do I see the pain that I know is mirrored in my eyes. I feel numb. It is not that I am empty or full, I just can’t feel anything but my own pain to everything else I am numb.

I dropped Amy off on my way home…I had made it all day without crying, but as I drove home I realized I am alone and the pain took over. I don’t have that other half to hug me and tell me that it will be ok. I don’t have someone to say, “you are upset, let me drive.” Richie isn’t here to lay in bed next to me…even if we don’t talk, he would just be here. He is the other half to my half and he’s not here.

Richie was with me with my grandfather died in 2002, he was with me when Ma Ma Bea died in 2005. But he’s not here this year. I am alone and every thing I felt in April is flooding back into my heart. The pain is so intense. I found myself crying that gut wrenching cry. The cry that takes over and twists your heart inside out and makes you double over. It is so hard to explain what this feels like…when I try to put it into words it doesn’t do the pain justice. It over takes me, over powers everything in my body to the point that I am exhausted and can hardly move. It paralyzes me. But then, I don’t sleep. I lay there in the dark and I think. I remember finding him, I remember the hospital, I remember waking up and it being my sister Michelle in the bed with me and not him that first morning after…I remember telling my dad to have “Amazing Grace” played but I refused to help plan the funeral. I remember sitting with his sister on the front porch at 7am and wondering what I was going to do. I remember it all…or the parts that weren’t masked by the medication. I remember just how much I loved him and that now he’s gone. Then the crying takes over again and I find myself lost in the pain.

Why did Richie die and leave me alone?