Table for One

Flames writhed around dried roses and love notes, as four geese floated nearby—eyeing me, a stranger on the dock. Charred flakes fluttered as I tipped the last note toward a dying ember, and watched it slowly ignite—eating down through “l” and “love,” and begin licking “you.” Smoke rose, and I felt a coldness grow within me as I sat alone, broken, my legs swinging down near the placid water.

Nudging aside the matchbook and lighter fluid, I lifted the small pine bark pyre and pushed it into the water. It listed as fish pecked the bottom, testing the swamping mass and pulling down burnt petals. I wanted it to sink, needed it gone.

Stones from the bank served swift judgment as I hurled them, the tears pouring down my face; the geese took flight, honking—my own cheering squad. Amid splashes and cracks and sprays of water, most of it disappeared—the remaining fragments floating further away. 

Hours later, as I walked the pond’s edge and timidly scanned the surface for evidence, hoping for none, my eyes fell upon a saturated section lodged amid the weeds. I leered down and felt my heart jolt: edges burned and barely legible, the epistle’s “you” clung to the side.

Frantic, I grabbed a mossy cobble, lifted it like Rafiki did Simba, and thrust it down ferociously—damning the last tangible vestige of a cherished relationship to the deep.

The world felt so much smaller.

***

It was a different kind of mourning.

When I awoke the next morning, it felt as though a stone lay across my chest; heavy enough to shorten my breath, but not to suffocate me entirely, as I’d silently hoped. Up and down, up and down: it rose and fell rhythmically, as anger and fear and uncertainty boxed my heart.

I heaved, and dipped below the rumpled covers to greet the grief—to remind myself of the hard truth that it, too, was a gift.

Tears will saturate and drown, but will not make anything clean. Conscious breathing will not stem the feelings of suffocation. The emotional depths to which you dive, in wonder and pain, to process and extrapolate meaning while replaying the movie of the life you thought you’d share will never bring true resolution; magical thinking cannot conjure a happy ending. 

Absolutely nothing will change the debilitatingly sad reality that someone with whom you shared your whole vulnerable self is gone from your life—reminding you that, to love another fully, we each must love our perfectly imperfect selves unabashedly.

So, get up.

Set a mental table for one, toast the beautiful moments you shared—from which you learned and laughed and felt satisfyingly full. And while the pain of loss will still be there, lingering at the periphery—a jackal waiting to fall upon any scrap of emotional fortitude—you can stem it. You have the power to forgive incrementally, to shift from a space of anger and judgment and fear to one of care: for your present self, your future self—for the person whom you cherished and those you will cherish. 

Breathe out your horrible morning breath.

Get up.

And make yourself proud.

I kicked off the covers, exhaled, and let my soaked eyelids fall.

In my mind’s eye, I kept the charred paper scrap in the pond afloat a moment longer. And then, with gratitude, let it go—the ripples calming on the surface into a reflective pool, where I greeted my hardened face with an affirmation of my own.

I love you.