Today I have decided to try to find a way to say goodbye. This may be the first of many posts, I am not really sure. It’s been about four and a half months since you decided that you couldn’t live in this world any longer. Such a short time but in some ways it feels like so much longer.
When we last spoke, it wasn’t the best of conversations and I am truly sorry for that. It’s not that I didn’t still care about you, after all, we did have a history that spanned more than twenty years. It’s just that I had moved on and could not let you believe that you would ever have a part in my future. I know that it hurt you. Even though you had chosen another over me, you still harbored the idea that I would always be yours and didn’t want another man in my life. It was selfish of you, but then, you had always been selfish.
I know that you had been drinking. You would get so emotional when you had too much to drink, and it angered me that you cried and begged me not to love anyone else. Angered me because you didn’t really want me, you just needed the security of having someone to fall back on when your ten-year affair didn’t work out the way you expected it to. Angered me because it was yet one more time that you tried to use emotional blackmail to manipulate me into something I knew was wrong. Angered me because you had made me so miserable for the last five years, but you still didn’t want me to find happiness with someone else.
Then you chose to end your life. This made me the most angry……angrier than I have ever been. Ever. I felt that you let your children down in a way that can never be fixed. You left no letters, nothing for them. Just left them. Forever. I could have forgiven you almost anything….and indeed, did forgive so much that no-one but you and I will ever know about. Including Ann. She thinks that you told her everything about us but I know for a fact that you did not. Some things you had forgotten about yourself and when we did talk about it you were appalled when you remembered. Many things that happened when you were too drunk to recall later. But I cannot forgive the fact that you let the loss of a fantasy relationship be more important to you than the loss of your children’s futures. There was no real future to this relationship, just an empty promise and an illusion of the perfect love. I tried to tell you….oh how I tried. I could see you rushing headlong into that train wreck but you and she both chose to see my opinions as my inability to let you go instead of the true observation and advice that I offered. I even told you that if she really chose to be with you that I would be so happy for you. I truly only wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to have the same happiness that I knew was waiting for me, and, I will admit, I wanted it in part so that you would let me go once and for all.
Now we have this. I have a wonderful man in my life but you still exist as a shadow on my heart that I need to bring out into the light. I won’t let you go completely because you are seen daily in our children. Their appearances, their mannerisms, all a reminder of the man who was once such a large part of their lives. I will be forever reminded of you but that is okay for had I not known you then I would never have been blessed with them. I thank you for that. And I thank you for the love that we once shared. Every day I find more reasons to treasure the good times that we shared and more reasons to let go of the bad times.
Being able to completely love another man has been a large part of my being able to remember only the best of you. I once thought that I could never trust again…..never love again. I blamed you for that and felt like I would never be complete again. Now that I know this to be untrue, I am free to let myself think about you in ways that I was not capable of before he came into my life.
Will the anger ever be totally gone? I don’t know. I have two sons who are still questioning your choice and a daughter who feels bad that she thought about calling you that last day of your life and didn’t. She and I both felt your presence in the weeks following your death, and only recently were able to talk about it. We both feel now that you stayed with the family long enough to make sure that we were okay and then moved on to where you needed to be. I know how much you truly loved your children and that you also still loved me in your own way. I know that once you were free of the cares of this world, you were able to see clearly and felt that you needed to make sure we would be able to handle the aftermath of your decision.
We will be fine. Your absence will always be felt by the children but in time they will come to understand a little better and, I hope, make their own peace with you and remember the good times. I am trying very hard to stop being angry with Ann as well. I know that she is as broken in her own way as you were and never intended to hurt you. I cannot, however, forgive her right now because she refuses to take any responsibility for your death. We all know that you were spiraling downward into alcoholism and depression, but I also know that if she had not left you the way she did that you would not have died that day. Maybe some other day? Who knows. But NOT THAT DAY. Some day she will cease to be a part of any thought process that I have whatsoever and be simply the non-entity that she should have always been in my life, whether I can totally forgive her or not.
But for now……I can almost forgive you for leaving the way you did. I remember the Eddie that I loved and will make sure that your children know that part of you. The incredibly smart, charismatic, funny, charming, life of the party that loved to sing and dance……the man who loved me as much as he was capable in the only way that he knew how…..the father of my three precious children.
Rest in peace Eddie……you were truly loved and will be missed.
Goodbye