Thanksgiving

Today was thanksgiving, my sweet.
Today, I woke up, not at all feeling grateful. What did I have to be grateful for? It's been exactly 4 weeks since I lost you, my heart was broken.
My heart was beating loudly in my ears, echoing the news that I was alive. I was still here, 4 weeks after you. Sometimes I dream of heaven, of a time when we'll be together again, when I will finally be complete, not walking around with this gaping hole in my chest, learning to adjust to this new life I have been thrust in to. It's not that I'm suicidal, or that I want to die... I just don't know how to live without you, my girl.
But I got up, and I help both prepare the Thanksgiving meal, and I rolled cutlery in napkins and I stacked paper plates. And then my mom asked me to set out your flower.
It was a lily your grandma had bought for you a few days ago. I smile to myself as I notice the lily becoming a bit of a tradition - I got a tiger lily when my grandmother died, because they were her favorite, and I got an easter lily when my friend, who was like a big brother to me, passed away, and now you have a lily too, Mia girl.
So I set it out on the table. Whenever I looked at it, I was filled with peace, that you were here, even if it wasn't the way I had expected. Instead of being in my arms and filling my heart with joy and relief over your arrival, you were here in the presence of a flower, my heart filled with longing and sorrow.
Today was thanksgiving, and I found something to be thankful for, because even though I didn't have you, I had much.
I have my family, gathered around me, laughing over card games gone wild
I have the memories of you. Oh how I wish I'd had more time, that I'd gotten to hold you just one time, to feel the weight of you in my arms before you were taken away. Instead I only know you from the inside out, and only I know the secrets, like the way you danced inside of me, the way you gave me hope, the way I loved you, those secrets are only mine to cherish
I have life, a beating heart, lungs that breathe in air.
I have the promise that one day I will be complete again
After the festivities had ended I snuck down to the basement and cried, because I lost you, my girl. Because I don't know who I am in a world without you, because life is going on without you.
Tonight the pain isn't overwhelming. The grief isn't so much a part of me i can't tell the difference between Emily and Grief anymore.
It is just there, the still dull ache that comes with the knowledge that you are gone. It is sweetened by gratitude, though.
Can I close my eyes and pray it will last? Pray that soon the grief will be over and I can learn how to live again. Some part of me knows it won't, that I'm only 4 weeks in, that soon it will come back and I will ache strongly once again. Maybe I can be foolish for just one night and believe it won't. Maybe for one night I can taste the sweetness and not the pain.
Maybe for just one night I can utter the words, "I love you," And not cry because you're gone.
I love you, Mia, I love you so so much.