Getting over someone … Doesn’t mean forgetting that person

I never thought I could ever get over the death of Julia. She is everything in my life, and she is even more important than myself. The time she spent in the hospital was the most painful moment in our life. I knew that she feels a great deal of pain incurred by the cancerous cells in her body, but she never once shown the pain in front of me; this, I have always believed that she was trying to prevent me from seeing her suffers so that I will not feel sad.

For me, every time I got to see her, I was worried that that might be the very last time I would be seeing her; so I treasure every moment I spent with her. Every time when I visited her in the hospital, I would hold her hand and then we would just chat and act like everything was normal.

Many would have thought that we are running away from reality. We never were. We just love each other so deeply so that we did not want to see the other party being sad. It would be very difficult for me to describe how we felt, you have to feel it yourself to know exactly what I mean by that.

The day I lost her to cancer … it still lives so vividly in my mind; I could never forget the way she struggled to breath the last breathe. The pain must be killing her. It really hurts me to see her suffered. How I wished I could bear part, if not all her pain she had to undergo. But the only thing I could do was to watch her losing her battle to death. I held on to her hand as usual until she left … without me.

The very next moment she was gone, I just didn’t know what to do with myself … didn’t know just what to do. I was so used to doing everything with her and making plan for two. Suddenly, I felt lost. There was no light to guide me. She was not only a guide but had been my closest soul companion. The first thing that came to my mind then was to leave this place with her; I can’t bear to let her go on this journey alone or should I say I can’t leave without her. And so, I tried to follow her. But I am glad that I live till today. She would never have agreed to the idea of me going with her; she would have wanted me to carry on with my life.

I am grateful to John for discovering my act of foolishness. He sent me to a psychiatrist shortly after that incident, saying that I needed professional help. I didn’t want to argue with him then, and so I just go for the therapy.

The therapy didn’t help a bit. I could not live a normal life. I could not get Julia out of my mind. Everything I do, her images would be there. Somehow, subconsciously, she seems pretty much alive to me. I could see her making breakfast every alternate morning and when it was my turn to make breakfast, I would always make an extra set for her. I could also see her cutting the grasses and tending to our garden of roses besides me every weekend.

And she would still sit by my side to watch sunset with me every evening. All this I never tell anyone; all they would say would be,” she is dead already and you are probably having illusions.” Maybe the main reason why I never tell anyone is that I can’t accept the fact that they’re right, she’s dead.

All these things carry on for two to three years. During that period, I even played the game we invented together called ‘Connection’. Whenever anyone of us wants to talk, the party whom initiated would say: “connect?” then the other party will say: “connected’. Every time, I would imagine her saying “connected” and I would start to tell her all the things I had done and how much I had missed her.

It went on for two to three years until … I not quite sure what actually hits me, but one night, she appeared in my dreams and we talked about lots of things, and I can’t wait to tell her all the things I did. Suddenly, she held on to my hand, looked me in my eyes and with tears in her eyes, she said,” Ben, please wake up, I’m dead already. It hurts me, more than you know, knowing that you are wasting your time. Please, for my sake, wake up.” I woke up crying in my bed that morning, realizing how foolish I actually am. And I started to live my life once again.

I realized that it hurts a lot to see the one that we love so dearly passed away, and it’s never easy to get over someone whom had once shared our life. But getting over someone doesn’t mean forgetting that person. We place them close to us, here in our heart to always remember them. And whenever we think of them, we will just reach into our heart for the image of them. In so doing, they live forever. But the most important things would be for us to carry on with our life so as not to disappoint them.