Ashley

This day will never be one you can deal with. Five years later, you can’t even think of functioning. The day will be one you can never forget. A huge high became an absolute nightmare in the blink of an eye. Your dreams shattered in the blink of an eye. Ashley had been the absolute love of your life, your soulmate. You had met when your family moved in junior high school. You met the day before school started, and you had been a fixture in each other’s lives since that day. She was your first and your only everything. She taught you how to live and love. You went to the same high school and college and moved back home to your hometown, inherited your aunt’s house and began remodeling it into your dream home. And the wedding was going to be a celebration of all of that, she had created a beautiful celebration of family and friends and love. She was just a ball of joy and light and creativity. And then it happened. Just two days to the big day, she was running around to get things ready and it happened. A driver who was driving when they shouldn’t ran the light and two lives ended. Since then, you were slowly able to lift yourself off the canvas. You finished the house, probably less amazing without her hand in it. You had gone back to work and thrown yourself into that. And some life and hope and re-entered your life. But even with therapy and caring friends and family, the day you lost her was still the black hole, the day you couldn’t function. So you take the day off every year. Slowly gather yourself, go sit at her grave, and just fall apart for a day. And your friends and mutual family have answered your need. Every year one or more of them come and get you breakfast, get you up and out the door, go to the grave with you and just share your loss and support you. You open your eyes when the alarm goes off ,shuffle downstairs to the smell of coffee, and head to the kitchen in a fog and say good morning to the person at the back door