“A Widow’s Haunting Letter: Love, Loss, and Lingering Trauma”
Dear John,
It’s been 10 years since you are gone. They tell me to find new love, I tell them I have chest of memories you left behind, full of pearls and jewels of your love.
Married at 20 and widowed at 24. They say I am still young and I need to give love a second chance. All this while I thought they were fools to think I don’t know about love. Love happens only once. And for me it was you. My once in a life time.
If you were alive I would have embarrassed you by singing Taylor Swift’s “Lover” on top of my voice and danced to Ed Sheeran’s “perfect”. I wept when I heard the Beyonce Duet version, when she says “We were kids, but we are so in love, Fighting against all odds”- oh John — This should have been our wedding song.
There was another song, you never got to hear. It’s “All of me” by John Legend. I heard it for 4 years everyday after you were done, imagining you singing it for me. It’s magical and it’s funny I know, I have kept you love alive through music. And they say I should give love a second chance? Bull shit ye?
But of lately, I have been angry John. My doctor says it’s depression. May be I am missing you too much. But my memory is failing me and I hate it. I hate it when someone raises their voice, or dictates what I should be doing. I hate it when sarcastic comment is passed or when someone gives me a backhanded compliment, I hate it when someone taunts me like I am a throwing myself at a man, when I am just having a conversation. With every boy I talk to, I am not flirting John. I hate it and you need to stop. From your grave or hell. You need to stop. Stop making me feel like shit.
10 years is a long time. And now I suddenly realise, I am not scared of second chances. I am scared of another ‘you’. I am scared to give all in love, and then get cheated, or treated like shit and then begged for forgiveness and pretend like everything is normal.
I am scared you will treat me like a queen one day, and call me a slut the next day. I am scared that you will crush the bouquet of flowers I got for you, and then compensate with chocolates when I am scared. I am scared you will throw a fit of anger in front of my parents, convince me everyone hates me, and I have no where to go but to stay with you.
I have not even confessed to my therapist that a part of me was relived when you died. Yes I cried. There was a sense of relief something was over I was glad. It was easy to keep alive in songs, but I buried your horror inside, my bones, packed parceled never to be opened. You were dead, so what’s was the point.
But I see it creep out of the hidden box. Traces of you, in judgement and sarcasm after 10 years later. I yelled at a mailed man yesterday — I thought to myself “OMG I am acting like him”. I made a backhanded compliment at mom and thought “John would have said something like that, Not Me”. Have I kept your secrets long inside of me, that your spreading on me like a disease from within.
I don’t ever want to be you John. I am angry! I want to kill you, but you are dead. Am I going crazy? Or it’s the aftermath of what you did to me? Or some last stage of grief before I let you go. I bathed for 2 hours under the shower yesterday to erase you from my mind. I hate you John and I want to scream on top of my mind. I HATE YOU JOHN!!! no matter how much I loved you. I HATE YOU. and it’s true.
Omg! I going crazy, why does this feel right somehow, screaming at your dead husband. Is this a process of healing or is it getting worst?
The songs I related to you “All of me” “Lover” and “Perfect” makes me puke. Weddings makes me anxious. I want to castrate every drunk angry man on the road. You are dead. But I want to scream, I wish “You were dead” at your grave, or pull your casket out and stab you in the places where it will hurt.
How do I do that John? Should burn your pictures or burn this house down. What do I do to make this go away. I don’t want to become bitter or saddist like you.After giving you 10 years of my youth, romanticizing the good parts of you, now I want revenge.
I don’t want second chance in love, I just want one. One chance to beat you for every emotional scar you gave me. Burn you alive with every pain you gave me.
I loved you for 10 years after you are gone, Now I wish you rot in hell — with Lover and Perfect playing in the background — reminding you of what you had and what you did to me!
Fuck you John
I am done loving you,
Rebecca