“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
― Kahlil Gibran

I sat with a group of friends at a local café. It is usually a time of joy, sometimes when I need it the most. This was one of those times. It is March and I have begun to contemplate the past year since Linda left me.

My friend Val, the eighty-two-year-old teenager, asked how Linda and I met and cautioned, “If it is too hard to talk about….”

“Val, I never find it hard to talk about Linda,” I answered. It is never too painful to talk about her. It is the dark, quiet times when I am alone with my darkest memories that I find hard. A vibrant, loving woman reduced to an urn of ashes is what is hard. Still, I left our gathering smiling, my mood lightened, even if it was short lived.

I only share the good times when I talk about Linda. There were thirty-eight years of good times. Tales of our first meeting and the winding road that we traveled trying to acknowledge we were in love were the subjects of the day. The meeting on top of a football field’s press box or was it when she stood with an inflated pumpkin on her head? The trip from hell to Charleston with her then boyfriend, my roommate. A trip to a local dive, The Casablanca Lounge, that brought love more into focus. In that conversation with Val, I realized I had an anodyne for the deep darkness I have been feeling for the past twelve months.

I have an old photograph of Linda being Linda. I keep it close by to remind me of who Linda was…not what she became. Hands apart, she is sticking her tongue out. The photo is dark but not as dark as her curls, the dark curls I loved and remember most. This is Linda, the Linda I must remember. The Linda that still makes me smile.

I must also remember the Linda of the last year of her life. I have no choice. Even in the darkest moments there were pinpoints of light. No matter how weak she became, there was still a light that shined brighter than all others. She struggled with names and called everyone “Baby” and told them, “That’s alright, it’s okay” even when it wasn’t.

Still, the darkness encroaches along with the bitterness I feel. Life played such a terrible trick. From the joy of being told, “You are in complete remission,” to the stoke a scant week later. Four months later she was gone…four months that seemed like four lifetimes for all the wrong reasons.

Despite the photography, I don’t think I will ever get over the bitterness. Despite the wonderful memories, I find myself angry. Sometimes, I get angry at myself. I get angry at God. I could have done more. I could have held her more, danced with her more, kissed her more.

God could have not been such a hateful trickster. Why did you take her from me in such a painful manner?

Selfishly, I feel robbed. She is gone and I am left to act as if I am still alive.

The lyrics of an old tune popped in my head, “Don’t it always seem to go. That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” I always knew what I had, and it made her loss even greater. There is a hole in my heart I never want to heal.

Even with bitterness there is room for joy. Life without Linda is a two-sided coin. Bitterness on one, the joy that was Linda on the other. I find that there is always something to smile about even in the darkness of absence.