Sunday, December 6, 2009

4--

Cole is one of those secrets I've kept. My last secret. I don't think I've ever told my sister, or my best friend, or anyone about him.

It's not because I've forgotten about him. There is no way I could ever forget him.

It's because no matter what words I could ever say, I could never make anyone understand who he was, or why he was so great. I want to rip the words out that do justice to him, and hang them up somewhere everyone will see them. I've kept him to myself for far too long, and I'm finally in a place where I can share my memory of him. I can let light into that place he occupied for so long.

I can remember.


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“It's weird...you know the end of something great is coming, but you want to hold on, just for one more second...just so it can hurt a little more.”



“In the end we are all separate: our stories, no matter how similar, come to a fork and diverge. We are drawn to each other because of our similarities, but it is our differences we must learn to respect.”--Johnny Mercer


“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”--Orson Welles

Sound of the drums
Beatin' in my heart
The thunder of guns
Tore me apart
You've been.. thunderstruck--
AC/DC Thunderstruck

"Endings are heartless...an ending is a closed door no man...can open"--Stephen King

Life is more than love and pleasure,
I came here to dig for treasure.
If you want to play you gotta pay
You know it's always been that way,
We all came to dig for treasure.


-Shark Puppy Dig

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It got to be our Sunday morning thing. I'm pretty sure you started it. How did we get stuck on that song? No matter, whoever woke up first started blasting the Foreigner, and singing that song. Belting it out. And it never got old.



I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me



No matter how much I didn't want to, I would always end up laughing. Maybe it was seeing you singing into my curling iron. Maybe it was your boxers with the flames (flames are all that is man, you'd tell me, completely serious). Maybe it was the way you jumped on the bed while I tried to hide (unsuccessfully) under the covers. Maybe it was just that I loved the sight of you. But I loved it when you sang. You did the whole fist pump, forehead wrinkling to hit the high notes, and it was just another reason for me to adore you. You were just funny like that. Just when I thought I couldn't love you anymore, you gave me another reason. And another.

With you, there was only more, happier, better.



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The thing that gets me most is I wonder if I ever told you 'I love you' enough. Did I? I can only hope that I have, because there's no way for me to change it now. I love you. I love you. I love you. And still it's not enough. It'll never be enough.



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I love you.





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You always kissed me goodbye, kissed me like we would never see each other again. Even if you were going to the mailbox. Even if you were going out for just a few minutes. You kissed me like the world was ending. That is one thing that I still miss. Sometimes it makes my heart ache. There was never any halfway with you. It was all. I got all of you, with nothing held back.

Maybe that's why I could never bring myself to talk about you, Cole. Because there were so many different parts of you, but at the root of it all, you gave all of yourself. You didn't hold back in anything you did. You'd been through things that would've caused most people to give up.

Not you. You lived for the day. You lived for the people you loved, and you gave. You gave everything that was in your heart to give, because you knew. You knew that the only truth in life is what people can bring themselves to share, no matter what the cost. You were never afraid to give of your heart. You were never afraid to hold out your hand to help someone else.

Those things that happened in your life, those bad things only made you a better person. I never understood how that could be. You had every reason to hate, to hurt, to want to inflict that hurt on other people, but you never did.

You took everything in your life and turned it into something better. You always found the good in every situation. And when I think about it, that first time we met, you even saw the good in me. You saw something in me that no one else had. You forever changed who I am, Cole. My life, my path, my dreams will never be the same. You helped me see things in a way that have forever changed the woman I am.

I guess I was just waiting for you to come along, pick me up, and make me beautiful.

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"Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning," that's the only thing I heard that whole day. It played on a loop in my head, over and over until I thought my heart would explode. I held onto it, held onto that phrase, as if it would bring you back.


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The selfish part of it is that I was supposed to be with you. But I wasn't.
So, in the end you were alone.
Did you call out for me? Did you wonder where I was during your last moments?

You were alone, because of ME. And I have to live with that.



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You were supposed to be here for years and years and years. We were supposed to laugh at the gray creeping in our hair, the way that time and age decided to restribute our bodies. We were supposed to celebrate ten, then twenty, then forever. We were supposed to cheat time and death and hurt. It was you, and me, and us.

And then it was just me.



-------


I knew that wasn't really you. I know that wherever you are now, this is only what you'd left behind. I also knew that we never, never left without kissing each other goodbye.

There wasn't anything else I could do. There wasn't anything else I could give you.

The least I could do, after all you'd given me, the least I could do was kiss you goodbye.




------




And I'm somewhere in between
Of What is real and just a dream...
Of What is real and just a dream...
Of What is real and just a dream...
Lifehouse--Somewhere in Between



***Edit***

I forgot to include this song and video. It just makes me think of him and miss him.


16 comments:

Soda and Candy said...

Oh Sal.
I'm glad you were loved like that. I'm so sorry it didn't stay with you through gray hair and everything.

Shaunak Mukherjee said...

Bittersweet Sal dear. You were so so lucky to have been loved. Finding someone like that is the fate of but the luckiest of people. Even when they're not there with you, the way they touched your life remains forever.

Alyson said...

As trite as it sounds, it IS better to have loved and lost than never loved.

Thank you for sharing that story and thank you for still being the hardcore, badass woman you are after everything you've been through.

Ed said...

How'd he die?

Spill it?

That's the only reason he would have left you.

Another awesome chapter, Sal.

jerrod said...

you have no idea how much I love Walking After You. so much that no one really knows.. it's one of my Blackbird's....

you're got that something, S...

kiki said...

did he know he wasn't going to be around forever?
maybe that's why he always kissed you goodbye so...

Travis said...

This is the kind of love I want to give my wife.

It's the love I have bottled up, but just can't figure out how to show.

You make me hurt, and it's wonderful.

NWO said...

Sal, all I have now are feelings... words escape me. **hugs**

Orson Wells nailed it hun: keep it going!

Maryx said...

I agree with NWO - Only feelings...

I'm so happy and so sad for you at the same time... and that's only the TOP emotions. Thanks for sharing sweetie. Appreciated.

Chris Gooch said...

This whole series really moved me Sal. I can't find the words to express how much but know that it did. Your writing always breaks my heart but this...this wrenched my soul.

The Peach Tart said...

This writing was so poignant and raw. Quite beautiful.

Anonymous said...

Sal,
I've been reading these incredible posts and just drinking them in, for their honesty, for their openness. This can't be easy for you to share, but I'm so glad you have. So many can relate, myself included.

Just wanted you to know.. I heard "Blackbird" the other day and thought of your story. I likely will for a long time.

Thanks for letting us in.

me. said...

That brought a tear to my eye. Ok, more than a few tears. To both eyes.

Sally-Sal said...

S&C:
Sometimes I think it was enough, just to be loved like that, but sometimes it only expounds on my loneliness.

Once you've had someone like that, you just can't settle for anything less.

Shaunak:
Part of who he was is will forever be part of who I am.
He made me a better person, by loving me. I don't think there is anything in this world better than that.

OWO:
Loving him was better than anything I've ever experienced. I really didn't think it would be this hard to talk about him, to remember him, but it got to me.

I still miss him, every day.

Ed:
He did die, but that's one thing I just can't go into. I'm sorry.

j-face:
I've loved that song since the first time I heard it. And the video is just genius.
Sometimes it feels like that to me, like being behind glass. Not because I want to be, but because sometimes the walls other people put up are so hard to get through.

"If you walk out on me
walking after you..."

kiki:
I really don't think he knew. He just kissed me like that because that's who he was.
He appreciated every moment, every memory, every instant.
Cole was alive in ways that most people aren't.

Travis:
Your wife is one lucky woman. To have someone want to give you that kind of love is something I think everyone should experience.

Love her like that, and you'll give her the world.

NWO:
You know me. I'll do my best to keep it going, til I find that elusive happy ending :)

Maryx:
Thank you. I think the hardest part about all this was remembering him. It made me ache, and miss him.

mysterg:
I think you and I are so much alike. To have it wrench your soul just means that you've experienced that kind of love I'm talking about.
There is so much in you, so much that you don't even know it.
I want you to find your happy ending, mysterg, because you are so rare, so pure of heart, so remarkable.

Peach Tart:
You always say the kindest things. Thank you for reading and experiencing a little of what Cole brought to my life.

sandyb:
Thank you so much for wading through my stories. These were so hard to write, not because the words wouldn't come, but because they wouldn't stop.

Lauren:
Me too :)

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Katherine Krige said...

Time is an interesting thing. It shows you life In a diferent vein. When we are past a thing, we can look back on it and the moment glows. Your Cole sounded like a beauty and I would not doubt that as moments pass and move farther away from him his beauty in soul will be a bittersweet heartache that you will gladly hold when you can hold nothing else. It is a tender thing to offer your gifts up to his memory. His love was there for a reason. The reason was you. Thank you for your words. I remember mine own through yours.