Six Minutes

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"But as much as I wanted to distance myself from all of the awful shit that happened on [August 11], I knew I was holding onto the memories of that day as tightly as I possibly could for fear of losing them forever.  If I forgot those memories - and the pain that came with them - I'd be doing a disservice to [Gavin], and worse, to [Kurt].  Our last few minutes together were in my head at almost all times, but especially at night.  No matter how hard I tried to banish the images from my mind, the last scene my brain conjured before I fell asleep each night was [Kurt] lying lifeless in that [bathtub], and it was the same image that assailed me when I woke up each morning.  I was reliving [his] death over and over again, and as a result, I hadn't had a decent night of sleep [in over two years].  As more time passed, many of the happiest memories of our [four]-plus years together had faded into the recesses of my mind, only to be recalled through immense effort during moments of near total isolation.  It was if that one awful day was clouding all the others..."
                ~Matthew Logelin, "Two Kisses for Maddy"

I usually don't quote entire paragraphs out of books.  But by changing the names, dates, and a few tiny details, Matt has written what I have not been able to find the words to explain.  The desire, the need to hold on to what was horrible.  The reluctance, the fear to bring forward what was good.  As the only person over the age of one in the room at the time, I feel it strongly.  Only I know what transpired in those six long minutes between finding Kurt's body and the police running up the stairs.  While some people know parts and pieces, I have told no one everything.  I am the sole keeper of those specific six minutes in time.  And while six minutes is nothing but a drop in the pan, it is those six minutes that have defined every minute since.  Our last touch.  Our last kiss.  Our last moments together.  The last time I ever saw him.  They are all contained in a mere six minutes in time.  In six minutes my view of the world was shattered.  My relationship with God tarnished.  My identity altered.  My sense of self destroyed.  In a lot of ways, those have been the most defining six minutes of my life thus far.

And I can't get them out of my mind.

When I think of Kurt's kiss, I think of the last one... not the first.  When I see his eyes, I see them open and lifeless in death, not laughing and child-like in life.  I feel his cool skin instead of the heat he radiated on winter nights.  I see the blue skin rather than pink cheeks.  The man who lives in my mind on a daily basis today is not the man who met me at the alter, shared a home, gave me a son.  My husband is dead.  In my mind, and in my reality.

I want to shake those images.  To see the man I loved, rather than the one I lost.  But at the same time, I don't want to forget.  For Gavin's sake.  But most of all, for Kurt's.  Good or bad, those were our last six minutes together.  There was no viewing.  No wake.  Once the police entered they would not let me leave the kitchen.  I never saw my husband again.  They were his last six minutes too.  In his house.  With his family.  Chaotic or not, that final kiss was the most intimate moment the two of us ever shared.  Even if only one of us actually experienced it.

I need to preserve the past, lest the past be forgotten.  And someone's last minutes are not a time to forget.

Finding a place in the future for the past.  Integrating the two.  Not letting one control the other.  Somewhere that happy medium exists.  So over the next little bit, in between blogs about today, I'm going to try to record some of that history.  Stories than only I now hold.  Maybe even those last six minutes.

Its not letting go.  Its releasing.  There is a difference.  And in releasing the past, maybe - just maybe - I'll be able to open up to the future...