Out of My Head. For Now.

Warning: This post may be very difficult for some of you to read, so please use caution. It was difficult to write, but honest and true and raw and what needed to not be in my head. There is a stretch of road on Barrett Parkway that gets to me. It's dumb. There is nothing significant that happened to me on that road, it's pretty bland and very brief, but twice I have started bawling for no reason on this stretch of road. I dictated this post in one breath into my phone two days ago, and I can just now look at it to transcribe it. It is not as hopeful or cheery or reflective as the last few posts may have been - just a very brutal moment in my head.

Sometimes I can't get the image of his bloody, dying face out of my head. It is vivid and graphic and filled with violent pictures of torn flesh and bone and hair mixed in with glass, his body sprawled across the front of the car. I can't stop imaging what he might have thought as he died in a car alone in the middle of the night, a block away from his house. Did he think about Sicily? Did he have a moment of consciousness where he might have considered what he was leaving behind? Did he apologize? Feel remorse?

It is torture to think about these things. I don't know why I do it to myself except that I cannot help it. I am not looking for why or how. I know why and how. These thoughts spring into my head unbidden and will not go away until I think them, examine them, roll them around for a bit.

If I could just talk to him one more time I would ask him what he was thinking as he died. I would tell him that I love him and I miss him every day, even as we begin to move on with life.

I would ask him where he is and what it's like, and if he was right or wrong. Just to hear his voice.

Of all of the hard years of my life, this has been the hardest. I told Sicily the other day that I hope this is the worst year of her life. She knew what I meant.

I wish I had been there in his final moments, not a thousand miles away. Even if I was just sleeping in my bed I felt like it would have been some comfort. I hope there was no pain. I hope it was quick. I hope there was no moment when he had to think about what he had done. I hope there was a flash and then nothing. It is torture to think he was aware in his final moments, and I can't know for sure that he wasn't.

Out of my head. For now.