Two months later

As I walk these streets filled with faces, I doubt I will remember even one.  Perhaps the profusion of redheads will register as a point of interest, but the features will blur. Maybe that bus driver with the slick black hair or the little grandmother from Ohio who stood with us on the train when there were no seats. Yes, maybe I will remember their faces for a short time. But not as long as yours. We don't just have memories, we memorize the faces of the ones we have loved. Noses. Eyebrows. Crevices. Sagging jowls. Whatever the familiar turns into, to become once again familiar until it leaves us.

A sharp pain anew when I realize that it is two months today. Two months without you.  I would love to visit with you. To tell you about my trip to Paris. How we ate your favorite foods. I wish I could tell you that we took you with us everywhere. But I cannot. If I did, then I would be lying. Because while you were with us, it is true that you were also gone.  This was a clearing. Not a remembrance.

I don't want to remember any faces. I want to go blank as I walk. I don't want to feel the wrenching pain of loss on every street. In every flower I see. In the first bite of chocolate. I want it to be new, if I can. I want to see myself. The man taking my ticket at the museum looks up and asks if he knows me. But it is the smile I flash him that he knows. It is a sign of recognition between us. Human to human. Yes, he knows me. Just as I know him. It is what we had fleetingly before you died. Eyes locked. Transferring love from one eye to the other.