I Will Never Say “Goodbye”

“Life changes in an instant. The ordinary instant.” - Joan Didion

I talk to my deceased lover, Lorena, everyday. Usually as I look at a photo of her beautiful face or a picture of us in an embrace or holding hands.

I ask her to come back.

I plead.

“Please, baby. I need you.”

I know that is my only chance for happiness.

Then I wonder if I am going crazy.

Joan Didion, in her memoir about grief after her husband’s sudden death, confirmed that if I am going insane, I am in good company. In her book, “The Year Of Magical Thinking,” she reflects, “I needed to be alone so that he could come back . . . I was thinking as small children think, as if thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome.”

And so, I have photos of Lorena all over my home, not as a shrine, but as a call to return.

I have also discovered first hand that grief takes its toll not only on the emotions, but also on one’s basic cognitive abilities.

And again, I am not alone.

Diana Ladio, in a recent article for Elephant Journal, observed that in grief “Loss is completely disorienting. I stood in the kitchen having forgotten where the plates were kept. Your brain is so deeply in “survival mode” that it totally misses otherwise autopilot-level tasks.”

I have experienced this. Getting into my car but not remembering where I was supposed to go.

Finally, there is the aloneness. I am alone. I am lonely. I hate being lonely, but I wall myself in, nonetheless, not taking calls, answering emails, or reaching out.

Instead, I talk to Lorena. Several times a day. And I always conclude our conversations with a kiss on my finger which I put to her face in the photographs and say, “I love you. You need to come back now.”

Each morning when I wake up in our bed I reach for her but find only her pillow. It is then I ask her that if she is not, or cannot, return to me, but is waiting for me, as she promised, that God or Karma or the Universe show mercy and take me to her.

Lorena, I will never say, “Goodbye.”

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