I wish I could dissolve in grief. I wish I could lose the voices in my head that tell me to get up, blow your nose, take deep breaths, one foot in front of the other, keep going. I wish I would dissolve into nothing but tears and sorrow and grief and cease to be anything else.

When the part of me that knows Jason is dead breaks through to the part of me that runs the day-to-day, the loss is as fresh as it was three weeks ago. Until I can hold this reality with me, each rediscovery is going to be that. A new discovery of everything I, and my community, have lost.

It’s been more than three weeks since I get a text from Jason and the silence is starting to echo. I haven’t opened G Chat on my phone, because he’s the only one I used that service for. The final message me sent me Friday afternoon is still there, still encouraging me to take a nap. I see it every time I look at my email. Behind it are years of conversations, minutia of daily life. Everything from requests for groceries to evening plans, to silly pictures and Viking emojis. Written between the lines is twelve years of a love so deep it had no bottom.

Today is a hard day. It started off with getting my things from my car. I have my keys back, finally. I also have my stilt boots and the other miscellanea from the car. We are mid-move, so I’m glad we had brought all the boxes and things into the house and my car was mostly empty. As it is, the rain had soaked the seats and anything on them. None of the car doors work, but the trunk is in perfect condition. A split second would have made the difference between this reality and another.