Ian,

I’m lying awake, late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, when we would almost certainly be together. I just realized the date, and it was 8 months and a day ago RIGHT NOW that you were finishing things up. You were preparing. You were getting yourself ready to die. Man, do I wish I knew what you were thinking at that moment. During those last hours.

Instead, I’m lying next to a pile of your pillows, a couple of which still vaguely smell a little bit like your bed. You are fading, though. Your smell, your prevalence, your essence is slowly leaking out of the world, and that makes me so sad. And angry. And hurt. So, so hurt.

This weekend and last, I’ve had friends from college visiting, and that’s been good. Distracting. I’ve taken them to your brother in law’s restaurant, and it’s been loverly (as expected). Me, though, in my neuroses about people and relationships wonder if it’s not just a little weird; me showing up there at all… Or the way I do it in not wanting to be a bother, how I will just come in and leave, with little to no fanfare, just saying hi if he happens to see me. Because as is expected and normal and good, your family has gone back to their normal lives, of which you weren’t a daily part, and I wasn’t a part at all. So we’ve stopped talking nearly as much as we were. I wish you were here. You’d know, because you were so good at people.

I always wish you were here, though… I keep thinking that you’d be joining us for this or that or the other…. Things that you probably really wouldn’t have. But because you’re not here to say one way or the other, I think to myself that you would be. And it sucks that you’re never going to be here again. It sucks that you’ll never play Cards Against Humanity with us, never try that new restaurant. It just sucks.

But here I am. Annoyingly resilient me… Laughing with these friends and being ok. Not amazing. Still terribly sad. But ok. I hate it. But I can’t change it. I can’t change my brain.

I miss your face. I miss YOU.

I wish you were here to cuddle with tonight, because I could use it.

But you’re not. So I cuddle my cat instead and smell your old pillow that still has a hint of the scent of your bed.

I’m tired of missing you. I’m pretty tired in general at this point.

So I’ll give up and try to sleep. Maybe I’ll be able.

I love you. Always will.

-Iris

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