“I just want to take a moment to recognize the big step we’re taking to forever entwine our souls.”
Michael said this to me 6 years ago today, the night before our wedding. We were cleaning the kitchen after dinner and water from the sink had sprayed up all over him and sent him into a rant. After which he suddenly turned to me and got serious before dropping this poetry on me. I remember hearing his words and feeling love for this man I was going to marry.
The next day we had our somewhat ridiculous and foolishly hopeful elopement-turned-zoom-wedding on a beach in Vancouver. While the Zoom element was last minute, we were so happy our family and friends could celebrate with us during the pandemic when travel was restricted.
Forever entwining our souls was accurate. I’ve previously written about how death doesn’t end a relationship. Even though Mike is dead, the love is there and continues. Always.
Anniversaries are always hard.
And I use them as a chance to share about him. It helps feel connected with him and those around me.
And with a death from overdose, it’s never quite so simple as all that. Often, I post on these days about love, and that’s true. And there is also another side. After Mike died, I experienced a disillusionment of sorts, looking back wondering what “signs” I “missed”.
We celebrated our wedding with a few drinks. We drank alcohol sometimes and Mike didn’t seem to have a problem with it. While I now know in recovery complete sobriety is recommended, during our time together Mike assured me using alcohol wasn’t a problem for him. I’ll never know if I should have been encouraging abstinence. I don’t know if he would have listened to me even if I tried.
Later in the celebration his mood changed and he told me, “No more pictures” which I ignored, and later “You’re driving”, which I took seriously and made sure I was sober. I noted the shift in his attitude and called him out on it at one point. I was confused at the time, but now I understand it as all part of the addiction. When we were home that night he seemed on a totally different wavelength to me. I think it was the alcohol, but have wondered if he was also using other substances that day. The forever unanswered questions mean I’m left with my best guess and assumptions.
Grieving Mike involves a constant rewriting of what happened.
it’s impossible to think about our wedding day, look at pictures, or even listen to music from the day without thinking about everything that happened next. Listening to our wedding playlist I catch myself judging the “cheeriness” of some of the songs. Then I remember this was a happy day! The process of rewriting the past is another loss.
I question what I could have done differently in the following three months that lead up to Mike’s death. I know things now about addiction and substance use that I didn’t know I needed to know back then. And it can be challenging to have compassion for my former self and everything she didn’t know. I also know that I could have researched and had knowledge and done all the things within my power to support him (like many people do every day) and he still could have died. Addiction is that powerful.
All that is true.
And…
The love we shared that day is still so alive for me.
I often come back to the words Mike spoke at our wedding.
“I went for a run this morning and it was really cloudy, and we really wanted to have some sunshine on our wedding day. And it actually started raining on me a little bit. And I checked the weather and the weather called for rain. We just kept plugging on and stuck with the plan, and sure enough, it’s a beautiful almost cloudless day out here and things went off without a hitch.
… And it got me thinking what I’ve been through in life and just about staying the course and taking care of those you love. And the sun will always come out. So, if there is one take away it’s that…”
Then Mike accidentally broke a glass and finishes: “oh shit, mazel tov!… The sun will come out!”
His words have brought me comfort, sadness, joy, hope, rage, and peace. Sometimes all those things at once. There have been times when I was so enraged at Mike for not taking his own advice. I was devastated that the pull of his addiction was so strong he wasn’t looking out for himself, or those he loved when he used again. And I’ve felt sorrow and empathy at how strong the pull of addiction must have been for him to risk all he had, and everything that was to come. He wanted to experience it all.
Having video of this day and his speech is such a gift. All the rewriting and spiralling I do internally can’t change videos and photos I have and the truth within them. While I was looking for videos for this piece I found a recording of a conversation between me, Mike and my mum the night before the wedding. It’s a simple conversation, about the everyday, and I can feel the joy and love within it. As multifaceted and layered as this grief is, at the heart is big love.
I wonder what poetic truth Mike would make of it all now, given the opportunity…
Have you found yourself rewriting the past in your grief?
