I Swear You Will Be Fine

Dear Josh,

I’m leaving Singapore on Friday at midnight. I’m more than a little anxious about this trip, if I’m being honest. It will be the first time sitting in a plane after you passed. I won’t be able to text you just before my flight. I won’t be able to listen to the playlist you made me without feeling a heaviness in my chest. I won’t be able to send you pictures of the beautiful sights I will see or videos of me walking around the place complaining about my family. The past week has been tough, but I think it will only get tougher as the days go by. It is December, and I have never felt more sadness and anger towards a month. November was bad because it was my birthday month, but December… boy, does December feel like a punch to the heart. Whilst we are all functioning as if we have successfully developed coping mechanisms for your absence, I still feel as though I’m in shock sometimes. December makes what happened last year feel so raw and close by. It’s like acid has been poured into an open wound.

I’m worried that I won’t be able to hold it together when I sit in the plane. I’m worried that I won’t be able to hold it together when I enter a hotel room. I’ll keep thinking about the last few times I was in a hotel room, wailing about how unfair life is. I’m afraid that the memories of me praying on my knees in the hotel bathroom floor will come back to me. I’m afraid that when I feel the softness of the carpet in the hotel room, I’ll remember how it felt on my knees as I crawled across it after hearing the news of your passing. I’m afraid that I’ll sit on the toilet seat and remember when I had to call Lynn a year ago to break the news.

I’m also afraid that I will be more irritable than I usually am. I like to think that I’m quite a patient person (not sure if anyone else would agree), but sometimes the words and actions of others really get to me and I lose it. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to stop myself from breaking down in front of my family – people who don’t like the display of emotions when it is not theirs – and I won’t be able to text you. The trip has not even begun, and I’ve already had to practice regulating my emotions. A few days ago, my mother told me about a New Year’s Eve party one of my extended relatives is hosting. She asked if we could go. I told her, “No, because it’s the 31st.” She then asked me, “Why 31st cannot go?” I was in disbelief. To make matters worse, I had to repeat “death anniversary” twice before she understood what I meant, as if saying it once was not difficult enough. I was really upset by this – how could you, my mother, forget that such a devastating part of your daughter’s life occurred? I couldn’t shake off this terrible sadness for the rest of the day, whilst I think she probably forgot this conversation even happened. There’s a phrase that goes, “The axe forgets but the tree remembers.” What can we do about things like that, right? I’m worried I won’t be able to cope in Switzerland or Italy, especially when I won’t have my own space to breathe.

Please help me out here. It’s awful enough that I have to travel this year. I really wish I didn’t have to. I know how I sound too – I know some people would love to go to the places I’ll be going to, but it’s different isn’t it? I’m sure I would have been excited were the circumstances different. Just please help me out. Help everyone else out too. This month is going to get worse… I can already feel it, but I don’t know what to do about it.

Also, my next few letters might revolve around the same theme – traveling – so sorry if it gets boring for you…

I can’t wait to see you again. Please keep sending us signs! I love you more, always, and forever.

Love always,
Sha