For a While

by Zoe
(Maryland)

So I survived the year mark, and for a while, I thought maybe I was getting better. Then today I was looking for something in my office and I opened a drawer in a file cabinet I do not often use and there were vases, glass flower vases all stacked and put away and I felt as though someone had kicked me in the chest. See John always sent me flowers; there was never a day that I did not have a vase of flowers on my desk. The girls always kidded me when they came, and I would smile because I know he sent them because he wanted me to always have something tangible to show that he loved me. But there are no more flowers; there are just stacks of empty glass vases.
John promised me we would be together always; he promised me he would not leave. But he is gone. I am alone, the most horrible kind of alone, the alone where every action, every thought rattles of a memory, rings of the loss of the most wonderful man in the world. Its like being on the other side of an echo, no real sound, just a memory.
We say here one breath on step, right now I do not feel like I can breathe, it is as if the air has been knocked out of me. See it occurred to me, as I looked in the drawer at these vases, that they were vases merely because they had held flowers. They were defined by what they did, what filled them, what made them whole. Now they are just glass jars collecting dust in a drawer I know my assistant never thought I would open. (I know she put them up, not wanting to throw them away, but not wanting me to see them.)
I was John’s, he filled me up, and he gave me purpose and meaning. And he was mine, I protected that part of him he was afraid to show, I made him smile. I am like the vases; I am defined by what I was, what filled me up, what gave me meaning and purpose, now, I am merely biding my time. Because the absolute honest truth is, I cannot do this without him, I do not want to. Oh I, will go through the motions and I will bide my time like these vases, a vague memory of what I was, until that time that I can be with him again.
One breathe one-step…