Let’s Hold Hands Forever

“Hold my hand.” She would say this to me every time I went to visit her. Never a question, but a confident statement she made when she needed or wanted it. Sometimes it was brief, other times it was not. It was comfort. A constant. Something she could count on. It was stability in an otherwise topsy-turvy time. It came to be symbolic for us. A symbol of support, solidarity, steadiness. Love. 

I learned a long time ago that her and I were connected in ways that I still don’t completely comprehend. While you may not believe in or understand this (and that’s absolutely ok), I feel as though I’ve known her in other lives before this one. You can laugh at that if you’d like, but there is a huge difference between new and old souls. You can feel it when you meet people. If you pay attention. 

Grief is a crafty bitch. It lays in wait, watching for the right opportunity. It waits until you’ve had just enough time to feel almost human again. And then it brings you to your knees to remind you that, no matter how much time passes, the hurt and the loss will always exist in the peripherals. 

I know I’ve mentioned it somewhere here before. There are some that never truly get over a loss because it fundamentally changes them. I am them. I’ve been them more than once in this life. I have learned that you figure out how to live differently after some losses because it alters you at your very core. The loss takes something physically from you and then becomes a part of you. Even though no one else may notice, your world is forever changed. Even if no one else remembers, you do. 4 years later, I still wonder how people just move through their days like nothing is different when there are still things I can’t do and places I can’t go. And then I remember that this grief is the price I pay for the purest of love. 

One of the times I was holding her hand, she asked me to take a picture. One hand 38, the other 85. I showed her the photo and she smiled, said it was perfect. She said someday I’d look at it and understand the gift it represented. She told me that having this picture meant we would forever be holding hands. I smiled when she said it and I smile every time I remember it. When I look at the picture now, I can feel her soft skin. It’s funny how a picture can evoke such a strong sensation. While I am so grateful I have it and this snapshot in time, the missing still takes my breath away.

We celebrated her life on Valentine’s Day. I don’t think anyone realized it when the date was chosen, it just seemed to make sense for the timeline of getting all the things ready. Knowing her, it was the perfect day. Celebrating her loves and life on the traditional day of love. Seems right. 

Take the pictures, say the things, share the stories. You never know when you’ll need them.