I got an email last night... or rather, Kurt got an email on his account which I am having forwarded to me automatically – I just can’t close it off. It was from an old acquaintance who had come across his name and was dropping a line to see how he was doing. If you take the time to ask, I will take the time to answer. So I replied. And, more than two years after the fact, had to break the news for the first time again....
In the one conversation Kurt and I had about death, he had told me that he didn’t think many people would bother to come to his funeral when the time came. He didn’t feel that many people cared that much. Looking out at the church on that Wednesday afternoon, however, it struck me how wrong he was....
You never really know how many people you have genuinely touched on some personal level until it is too late. You never really have a chance to see the size of the footprint you leave on the world. Both literally and figuratively, Kurt had big feet. Which puts a lot of pressure on me.
I have big shoes to fill.
I can admit I have become somewhat reclusive to many since Kurt’s passing. I don’t share as openly, for fear of judgement and reprisal. I don’t love as openly, for fear of getting hurt. I have cut ties with many people, and things that used to be important to me – that still are important to me. I don’t know why. Because it is easier? Safer? Hurts less? Is more predictable? Its not because I want to. There is so much about how I am reacting that I just don’t understand... I surrender to my need to hide, to cocoon myself, for fear of the above and more. For fear of being exposed. For fear of being wrong. Just for fear...
Anxiety is a term I didn’t really know up until the fallout from that day. Now it is my constant companion. And it drives so much of what I do, what I say. How I feel. I am controlled by my unreasonable, uncontrollable emotions. Which only heightens the feelings of being unsafe, and out of control.
I have made some mistakes throughout this grieving process. I have felt the consequences. Some deserved. And some not. I have hurt. And I have been hurt. And yet I won’t apologize for what I have or have not done. How I have or have not done it. Because we all cope in our own manner. And I am still standing. Still coping. Mine has gotten me this far... Still, I wonder if I am driving away people by my intense, inexplicable need for self preservation and self assurance. If I am actually shrinking my footprint as time passes.
If I were to die tomorrow, what would people remember? Would they see me as I am today – and have been for much of the past two years? Or would they see me as the person I was for the thirty-plus years before? The real person who is buried beneath layers of history, complexities and sadness. The person Kurt fell in love with. I will never be that person again – the person I loved. But I hope to emerge from this a reincarnation of that person. A person I can love again.
Would people care what happened? What I have lived through? How hard I fell? How deeply it impacted me? How long the climb has been? How far I have come? How much further I have to go? How hard I have tried to reach the top? Or would they think it was only an excuse, a cover-up? Would they understand? Try to understand?
Would they even come to my funeral at all?
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