Running On Empty

We buried you on a Wednesday and I remember it like it was last night. I spent all of Tuesday dreading what was to come of the next day and I knew that even my most thorough predictions of what could break my heart would likely not do it justice. And I was right.

It was perfectly sunny and I thought that to be a great slap in the face. Sunny funerals never existed in my mind. They were the quintessential oxymoron and they were almost spiteful. It was God's way of saying that the world would continue without you and I was in no position to assume that train of thought.

I spent the evening before on the floor of the bathroom in a steady and continuous stream of vomiting. Each time I was done heaving the nothingness and the stomach acid into the toilet, I would lie down and put my face up against the floor--because it was the coldest place I could think of. And then that made me think of you and how we used to lie down in the snow and brush each others hands and feet when we made snow angels. But this was different and I was in there alone on the bathroom floor.

When we put you in the ground, I kept thinking that I saw you standing there across the other side of the plot. But I was wrong and when it came to saying goodbye I was always the lingerer. I kept looking up there and out there, looking for clouds that were never going to come.

And later that afternoon, at around five, I was in the 6th mile of a 7 mile run, running under the endless canopy of Cypress trees on Red Road, when the first drop of water hit my forehead. And then the second. And the third. Until it started pouring so hard that I couldn't tell the difference between that and what was streaming down from me. So I ran. And then I ran faster. And I ran even more.

But there was no way to please me--because this momentum was so promising that it brought on the guilt. And it just meant that things went on and that the only denominator for us was only what I could and couldn't count.