Your Grave

Your Grave

I put off visiting your grave for a long time, honestly. Partly because of the money it would cost to travel to where they buried you. And partly because I thought I was okay without.

But now that I have the money, and now that I’m here. I can’t do this. I can’t look at your grave and remember all the times we could have had, or all the times we did have. I can’t handle knowing that you’re dead, and that box that’s buried in the ground with a urn in it, I can handle that it’s you they’re holding.

I can’t handle that I’m never going to see you again, never see you smile, never hear you laugh. I can’t handle that you’re dead. I just can’t. And most of the time I can hide that- I can bury that feeling that suffocates me.

This is your grave. Your final resting place. You should have lived. That cancer should not have gotten that far. If your stupid family hadn’t said no to your radiation, maybe you would be here right now. Maybe you’d be visiting the old friend you’re buried next to, and maybe it wouldn’t be me mourning the lost loved one.

I was fine- I was excited to see your grave, honestly. I wasn’t excited about your death- no, not at all. But I was excited to finally see your grave simply for the fact that I could stop worrying about the fact that I hadn’t visited. That I hadn’t gotten to your memorial.

And I could stop hurting about the fact that the only memorial of yours that I’ve seen is the obituary online. Or the old stuff of yours that’s laying around my house.

But as I got to your grave, and as I saw it- it hit me hard, it hit me like a truck. I’d been bottling it up for so long and when I finally saw your grave- I just shattered.

All of those tiny little pieces of my walls I’d struggled to put up and mend daily just broke. Your grave to a hammer to them and knocked them down.

I couldn’t handle it. I left almost as soon as I arrived. I’m never going to be able to handle it, I think. It’s just one of those things that I’ll bury until moments like this where I’m writing about it and sob in silently to myself.

Because I miss you. I miss you so fucking much. And I’m never going to see you again. And with that I realise how many photos of you I actually have. And that’s like ten.

I ignored you too much, I was a teen, always busy. Never had the time to hug you when I saw you, or to really say hi, or bye. I never really cherished the moments I spent with you because the thought of you dying- a person filled with such life and happiness- just the thought of you dying is so foreign. It feels wrong.

And when you were in the hospital on and off, it still didn’t really hit me. Only in the one moment we shared together it did.

I said, “I don’t want you to die.”

And you just smiled softly, a reassuring thing, I’m sure, but through my tears I was not reassured, not in the slightest. And you said, “Everyone has their time. Everyone dies. And this is mine.”

What is a young teenager supposed to do with that? I wasn’t going to take it to heart. And I didn’t. I didn’t when my mom woke me at 2:30 in the morning to tell me that they’d called to tell us you’d died. I didn’t, not until I’d seen your grave.

Sure, in passing moments I did, and I cried. But the full force really hit when I walked up to your snow covered grave, the snow crunching under my feet, that, that is when it hit me. I couldn’t hold back the tears.

It shouldn’t have been your time. You should still be here at Christmas, Thanksgiving, my birthday, all of those moments. You should still be there to laugh and make everyone else just as happy as you were.

I miss you so much. I miss you so so much.