I noticed a few days ago how rarely I’m writing here. This grief, this pain of losing you has become so personal, so cocooned in my heart that it’s even hard to share now. How does my heart hold it all? I wonder that as I navigate this world without you, Elira. The loneliness from your missing breath is so distinct most days. I am with others but so terribly alone. I never realized such loneliness existed until you left. I search for you in every step I take, in every flower I see and touch, in every raindrop, in others’ laughters and heartaches. I search for you like an astronaut in outer space, not knowing exactly where to go or what to do but still searching, in hopes of finding you.
It’s hard to believe but in a few months I will be approaching 1000 days of living without you. One thousand sounds like such a big number. Anyone who knows me knows life’s challenges have never phased me. I tackle them all without any trepidation. But, your absence is not a life challenge, it’s an impossible reality. I clearly remember thinking hours and days after you died how to explain to the world that none of it made sense without you. People think I am being melodramatic when I say you were my breath but it’s the only way I can really express what you were to me. I have been thinking a lot about that. How did you become my all? Why did I love you this much? Why couldn’t have you just been my daughter? How did you become my home? Why didn’t I love others the same way? Why didn’t you just grow in my stomach instead of my soul? How did I lose you?
I have been contemplating how I will approach the 1,000-th day without you. It feels ceremonial, for some reason. Then, the One Thousand and One Nights from the Arabian Nights came to mind. Just like Scheherazade, I have to devise a scheme on how to live, to live without your breath. Your absence, the cruelest king ever. So I will write, I will tell, one thousand and one tales each night, perhaps short, but still I’ll write. The words always save me, they mend my aching heart. I will write to remember you, to remember the miracle that I am, walking this earth without you.
I recently found out ee cummings also loved someone the way I love you, Elira. “you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars.”
Love,
Your Ma
