I WOULD HAVE KICKED YOUR FUCKING COFFIN OVER IF I HAD TO. AND NOBODY WAS SURPRISED.

When you loved deeply and left nothing unsaid, how could grief be anything but a demonstration of pure love.

THE FULL CIRCLE. THE GIFTS GRIEVING YOU HAS BROUGHT ME.

Can deep pain be a beautiful experience?

Twelve months (Sept 11th). Feels like twelve minutes.

And if I'm being honest, I'd do every minute of it again. Not for the loss. But for what honouring you taught me.

I have had a year to reflect on your death. I am so grateful that we sat down and had that uncomfortable conversation about your intentions. That you loved me enough to prepare me in your own way so I could handle it in mine. I loved that you respected that I couldn't stay and wait for the inevitable. But I am absolutely furious that during that conversation you didn't grab me by the shoulders, shake your finger in my face and speak to me sternly when you said I'd be given a hard time. You were right. I did. I just wish you'd made it louder.

Handling someone's life affairs is hard enough. But nothing could have prepared me for the shitshow that you knew was to come. I did you good, my boy. I made it right. I didn't play dirty. I didn't embarrass you. Every single decision had your honour at heart.

And not one bit of it broke me. It actually did the opposite.

Because grief can also be gratifying. It handed me answers I didn't know I needed. It filled in gaps I didn't know existed. I learned things about your life that you had fiercely protected me from. Things that broke my heart. Things that brought me peace. Things that also made complete sense of why you loved me the way you did.

People say until death do us part like it's an ending. For me it was just the beginning of the next chapter.

What do people get wrong about grieving someone you truly loved?

When I talk about you people expect sadness. They offer instant sympathy for my loss.

What they get in response not sadness it's pride. Gratitude. Admiration. A smile when I tell people that I loved you so much I would have kicked your fucking coffin over at your funeral if I had to. It's probably a good thing I wasn't invited to the celebration of life because honestly, you know I would have. Hahaha.

I mourn your life. Not your death. There's a difference and most people don't know what to do with that.

We loved. Fully. We owed each other nothing and gave each other everything. No games. No conditions. Complete respect, and everyone knew it. It is our love that brings me such joy.

I will always think of you. Always miss you. Always cry. Always wish things had been different for you. But not for us. Not what we had. I am grateful that I got to love you the way I did. I am so grateful that you loved me the way you did.

We are still rock solid. If anything, more connected now than before you died. I know am and always will be the love of your life. Only people riddled with guilt or needed to shift blame would argue otherwise.

I know for a fact you haven't left my side. The signs are everywhere. Too many to be coincidence. Too specific to ignore. You are still with me watching. Still guiding. Still protecting. Still making sure I'm going to be okay.

And I love you for that. More now than ever.

What did the last twelve months teach me about love, pain and the people we protect ourselves from?

You had a way with words. Poisonous or poignant depending on the day.

In this case, both.

I came across some of your private words. The kind nobody writes unless they mean every syllable. You wrote about us with a tenderness most people never find the courage to feel, let alone put down on paper. You remembered my fears. My dreams. The small intimate details that only someone who truly knows you ever holds onto.

Not a single word of bitterness. Just pure love.

But there were other words too. Words that gave me a real insight into your state of mind. Your struggles. Your confusion. Your anger. Your emptiness. And that is my only sadness. That you felt that way. That you tried so hard to be loved by people who didn't know how.

Because what I also found were the fingerprints of someone who called it love but it was enmeshment, it was emotional incest. And it made all your conversations and phone calls for endless hours make sense. And she was all over your life. She loved you the only way she knew how, via herself. Possessively. Conditionally. Suffocatingly. The kind of damage that takes a lifetime to do. The kind that hides behind a lovely facade and the performance of innocence while quietly destroying the people she loves from the inside out. The kind that drives a good man to isolation, to alcohol, to depression, to carrying weight that was never yours to carry.

Diabolical people always dob themselves in with their own actions. And this was no different. And, you knew she would. I'm naming it now. Not for revenge. For everyone quietly reading this thinking, finally someone gets it. You are not imagining it. You are not weak for struggling under it. And you are not alone.

Because abuse doesn't always look like abuse. Sometimes it looks like someone who can't live without you or far from you. Someone who calls it love while slowly making sure you can't breathe without their permission. Until the day they actually paid you to stay away. Now they need to live with that.

I'm suprisingly content, our relationship was an honour and a privilege. Nearly fifteen years of friendship, love, depth and real intimacy. I am grateful down to my bones that I was lucky enough to love you.

I know you're still holding my hand. Something is coming. I can feel it. The signs are too loud to ignore. You are orchestrating things from wherever you are and I am paying very close attention. I can still feel you holding my hand, just differently.

My life is about to change. It has to. And for the first time in a long time, I am not afraid of that.

Most people will never know what their person truly felt. Not because the love wasn't there. Because nobody ever taught them how to say it while they still had the chance. I'm glad we invited those deep and meaningfuls.

That is the conversation I am here to have. With you, the reader of this blog. Right now.

Before it's too late. Before the silence becomes permanent. Before someone has to stumble across it on a laptop when they're already gone.

Think about the person who matters most to you right now. Have you said it?

Say it now. Love like you mean it now. It's worth it, even if it does end.

Please continue to watch over me, Brodie. I feel you everywhere. And I'm ready for whatever you've got in store for me next.

PS. I love you. xo