The Days I Loved You Most

by Amy Neff

we can’t navigate through our words, will our hearts recognize each other in this new darkness?

How much I could love her, this tiny person I made, that I just met. How little desire I had to put myself through it again, to tear myself in two in childbirth, only to split myself further in motherhood, slicing and slicing until I am a wisp of a woman, unrecognizable.

The girl who always wanted to fly away to Boston, to California. I’ve always been afraid to lose her, of what she would find, who she would become. Evelyn wants to fly away again one last time. And I’ll let her, because I know this time I can go with her, and together we can soar into the light.

Missing him became the dust covering every surface, that floated in the air, unnoticeable unless I caught it in the right light, then it burst and refracted, glittering into view.

“The choice to leave is not one you can take back. You need to be sure there isn’t a more important reason to stay.”

I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. To trudge along after those closest to you have died, to continue on without your love beside you. How lonely that would be, how horrible to keep saying goodbye, to exist in the spaces they no longer fill.

“Sometimes things happen, and there isn’t anything we can do but live the best life we can, and hope that we’re ready for them.”

But like we don’t have control over what happens in the world, we don’t have control over when we leave it. All we can do is love the people around us while we can. That is all we can do.”

“You don’t have to carry everything on your own, you know.”

We still have time. But what if we don’t?

And it’s because of the love that your father and I shared that I am okay with death. Because I really lived. It’s time you let yourself have something real. It’s worth it. It’s the only thing that’s worth anything.”

I’m thankful Violet and I differ in this crucial way; she can be guided, advised, her perspective reshaped through conversations, she can learn by watching others. Jane is more like me. No one could have told us, saved us from our mistakes. We had to see how it felt to run.

I don’t want her to wait as long as I did, as Maelynn did, to realize that loving someone doesn’t mean losing yourself, that it can add more than it takes.

Death isn’t the only way to die.

how many years of this will I miss? How many years will I take away from Joseph? He could outlive me. I could outlive him. That’s the way it goes. If you don’t plan it. If you don’t run.

“The best way I can think to say goodbye is to revisit it all...falling in love, having our children, the grandchildren, all of it...even the days we were lost. It’s not only the happiest days, though they’re a part of it.” Her lower lip begins to tremble. “But it was also the hardest days. The days I was lost, the days I thought I’d lose you. When everything fell apart but you were all I needed.” A tear falls down her cheek, her hand clasped in mine, a hold so tender I never want to let go. “Those are the days I loved you most.”

I had heard our concerto for the first time when Joseph took me to the symphony, and I was struck by Mozart’s dual arrangement. There was something joyful about it, soothing but playful, like someone bouncing through a lifetime of memories. A feeling of having truly lived: the grand opening, the drama and the hints of melancholy, the reflective, graceful finale. A perfect farewell.

we want our ashes scattered beyond the sandbar, floating through schools of minnows, carried on the backs of crabs, drifting in and out with the tides, in the place we’ve always been and will always be.

Given the chance, how do we begin a goodbye, to include everything they will need to hear after we are gone? Especially when we are choosing to leave them behind. Leaving, when there are so many more important reasons for us to stay.

“Do you think you’ll be together, after? You and Dad?” I twist my wedding ring between swollen joints. “I don’t know what to believe. It’s nice to hope, I suppose. If it were up to me, we would be together here instead.” I meet Violet’s eyes. “But that’s not an option for me, not the way that I want it to be. I’ve lived a full and beautiful life. I couldn’t have asked for more out of it.”

It is too hard to grieve her every day, to know that at any moment we could get a call that would bring us to our knees.

Which is worse to lose, the one you love, or your ability to recognize their face?

But you can’t know. Sometimes, these things get taken without warning, and you can’t get them back.

What do I want, Evelyn? God if I know. I want time with her, with the people I love. I want time with the people we lost. I want to go back to the beginning.