Day 43

Well, I moved back home. It was a tough but logical next step, I just need somewhere I can stay for a little while and regroup. So far it's been okay. Spring in Seattle is my absolute favorite time & place and the rocky Puget Sound beaches have already been a nice refuge for my broken heart. It's nice to see so many things alive, bright and thriving even though everything in my heart feels so dark and dead. It's a constant promise of new life.

There are, however, many things that scare me about this place. I'm scared to go to the Seattle Temple. I know someday, hopefully soon, I will want to. But for now, it hurts to even think about. I'm scared to go to the spot we had our reception. The memory of him taking me there during Christmas break and boldly telling me "This is where our reception will be!" before I had agreed to marry him is still too fresh in my mind. And most of all, I'm scared of visiting his grave. Because he's not there. Visiting his grave would almost reaffirm my deepest fear that he IS just in the ground. But he is not. He is with me. Anywhere and everywhere I go. Everyone does this differently, many people find a lot of solace in graves. I honestly used to love walking around the cemetery near my old house in Provo, trying to visualize the people that were buried there. Imagining it as more of a gathering place of people than a field full of bodies. But now, it's Mitch's body. And that body is too special to me. Too sacred. It's hard to explain but I don't see myself finding great comfort where his mortal body lies. At least, not yet.

So for now, I go to Mitch in nature. I go to Mitch through meditation and prayer. I see him in this city we love and yearned to live one day together as a family. I see him in the sailboats on the Puget Sound. I feel him in the damp pacific northwest air. I see him in the technology of any place I am. I feel his presence with me where ever I go. I know he is with me. This place where we were once dumb teenagers too obsessed with each other to care about anything else. This place where his pure heart won me over, I couldn't help but love him. I couldn't escape the most true thing in my life, that we were meant to love each other for as long as we could on earth. I love him more with each passing day. I miss him with every cell of my mortal body and with every ounce of my soul. I wish that was enough to bring him back to me, or me to him.

This morning, I remembered how he used to tease me for being so "terminal" whenever I got sick. I'd lay in bed, moaning and groaning & wishing death upon myself. On multiple occasions I can remember saying, "Just leave me here to die" half joking, half serious. Oh, how I knew nothing of what it felt to actually want to die. He rarely was slowed down by sickness so he  would roll his eyes at me whenever I would spiral down into my terminal attitude. "You're fine, Britt." he'd say. This morning, when I remembered this, I thought of Mitch seeing me now, completely useless & I could imagine him telling me to at least try to stop being so terminal about all of this. He was always so blunt and honest. I know he'd tell me that I would be okay, that I would get through this. But also, I think of his beautiful eyes, full of sympathy and love that moment he left me at the airport while I had the stomach flu. He hugged me and then held my shoulders. The look in his eyes said everything, I will never forget it. It was the look of desperately wanting to take it away, or at least to be able to travel with me and make sure I was okay. 

I like to imagine that he's battling these conflicting thoughts right now. Desperately wanting to take it away & wanting me to try a little harder to be a little less pathetic. I'm trying my best, Mitch! I really really am. If there's anything you can do on your end, that would be fantastic.

I love you, Mitch. Every day, every moment, every second.

"It is true. We live to die, and we die to live again. From an eternal perspective the only death that is truly premature is the death of one who is not prepared to meet God."

Russell M. Nelson