Apparently the day a person died is sometimes known as a death anniversary. I am not sure that is a term that entirely fits. But that is what today was. Last year, on this day, my best friend went up to the wilderness and ended his life. It is just as awful as I expected it to be. There is nothing that feels right. Nothing that is the right thing to do.

Celebration of a death anniversary on the same day as our wedding anniversary somehow makes things worse. Beginning and ending all colliding into a single moment. It’s too much. There should be beautiful words, but all that I have is the pain that I live with every day. And there are no beautiful words that can fix that. There could be harsh words too, but those just feel like ash and catch in the throat.

How is it that you are gone, but the world just keeps going? How is it that my heart continues to beat when yours has been stilled for a year already? Why is there so much still going on from one moment to the next, when it feels as if everything should have stopped when your life ended? How is it that a whole year later everything can hurt and feel raw the way it felt a year ago?

There is something I should be doing. Something I should be writing. Something perhaps that I should be shouting, but I don’t know what it is. It is sometimes easier to just lay here, staving off a panic attack, thinking about nothing. This first death anniversary is painful. It brings everything back into sharp focus. It makes missing you unbearable again. What to do? There is nothing to do, but survive it.