Posted by Iris on March 26, 2001 at 21:28:08:
It doesn't even seem right to say his name and "dead" in the same breath, so this will be one of the hardest things I've written. I noticed everyone here is giving short accounts of their grief, but it's taking all the nerve I have to even think about it now, so I'm going to tell the whole ugly story.
Not being very close to my family and a little too smart for my own good, I left home at 14 to attend NYU. I hadn't developed social skill to that point, so the next year I learned how to make friends and have a normal kind of life. I met Laslo a little after my 15th birthday. Most scoff at this, thinking how could a kid know anything about love, but I fell, and fell hard. We were best friends until my 16th birthday, when he (19 at the time) confessed that he'd been in love with me as well. Six months later we were living together, "playing house".
We stayed madly in love, that's the shocking thing. For the ten years we knew each other, as long as we'd been together... I'd still catch my breath when he walked into a room. I'd wake up and roll over, amazed that I was waking next to him. Our life was filled with romance, easy love and passion. I'm not going to claim we never fought, that'd be silly, but in everything we did it was in love.
After collage we moved to San Francisco where I wrote for a publishiing house as a ghostwriter. I'd always wanted to write my own novels, but this gave us more income... and I'd always felt he was more talented then I... so I took it so I could free him to paint. It was a gift, and one I'd do again. After a year and a half, lots of Salon shows and what felt like a thousand under my belt, he landed his fist one man show back in New York. Excited, we left back for the City and at the show, he sold nearly every painting. I was so proud.
His gift to me was quiting my job. For the next year I worked on my novel, usually working in the same studio he painted in. That's how most of our life was. Paint, art, writing, cooking... everything was us. Some of the best times of my life were spent reading aloud to him while he painted, or playing my cello (badly) as he worked, him bringing me a cup of coffee when I was up late... the best would be sitting back to back with him, him drawing a mock-up and me working on something....we'd lean our heads back on each other's shoulder and talk. Waking in the middle of the night to make a cheesecake together. Going to parties together and knowing the comfort I'd feel looking up and seeing him across the room, checking on me. Staying in our pajamas all Sunday, reading the paper together eating bagles in bed and making love all afternoon.
Laslo knew everything about me. Was my family, my best friend, my lover and partner in life and everything. He taught me so much and gave me everything in the world a girl, then woman could ask for.
We were married on May 7th of 2000. I never wanted to marry (the joke had always been my mother used up all my turns) simply spend my life with him. Laslo couldn't get around the marrage thing. Asked me several times in the most romantic ways, and I'd always said no, that we were fine as we are. May 7th, he wouldn't take no for an answer. I got a note on my desk at the house after a trip out of town that said, "Meet me at the studio at 7:30, if your late I'll skin you alive." I was always late.
I made it there and he was standing on the stoop in a suit. Informed me we were getting married right now. Today. This moment. I thought he was joking, but in the studio there were all of our friends, our families and a judge. My god, talk about sweeping a girl off her feet. I got dressed in the small cramped bathroom (he'd bought a dress and brought my make-up, the darling) and we got hitched. Three days later he was crossing the street on his way home from the studio and a long day of work, we were getting ready to go on our honeymoon in two days, he was hit by a cab outside our loft.
It broke his neck and back. He went into a coma and died ten days later. I didn't move, was afraid to go to the bathroom, wouldn't eat, just sat next to him the whole time, or just outside the OR door when they'd take him in time after time to try and repair the damage. No one could move me or make me leave. Not being religious, I prayed to every god availabe and would hve become the most pious individual alive if only he'd woken up.
When he died our best friend Angus got me a set of clippers and I shaved his head, taking his hair with me. I stayed in a daze through the cremation and sending his ashes off the Brooklin Bridge. The wake was at his mother's home, I don't even remember it.
The hardest thing was going home. I hadn't been there since I'd gone with him to the hospital. Opening the door and smelling everything, him. The breakfast dishes still on the table looking like life was about to happen, knowing I'd left the laundry on the line on the roof, and thinking how could Laslo be dead if his shirts were flapping in the wind up there? The mail piled up at our front door, his paint splattered overalls crumbled on the floor in the bathroom, looking like he'd just hopped out of them and into the shower, still holding the shape of his legs on the tile.
Angus found me sitting outside our loft door, refusing to go back in. He went in, packed a few things and checked me into a hotel for the next month. I never went back. Angus closed up the house, sold it soon after, put Laslo's paintings and gear into storage along with most of our things and took care of my finances. Instead of thanking him for the blessing he'd been, I did the worst thing I think I've ever done in my life.
I cleaned out my bank account, got into my car and left. For the last seven months I haven't delt with anything. I haven't called my family or friends. I know Angus has got to be going out of his mind, not to mention my mother. I've been roaming from one town to the next, staying for a little while, getting a job and when things feel too much... leaving. January saw me waiting tables in three states. this is the first thing I've writen at all since he died, I wasn't sure I could write at all anymore.
I know this isn't a way to live, belongings in the back of an old car, roaming and not thinking at all. I'm not proud of it, but this is all I feel I can do now.... but I know I have to go home sometime soon. I can feel May coming, crushing down on me. I'm not sure what will happen when D-day comes, if I'll go off the deep end again and haul ass, or if... I just don't know.
I've been in the same town since Febuary 13th, and have started seeing someone about this... but we haven't gotten to Laslo yet. I just can't talk about it. My doctor gave me this site and told me to write it all down, and yeah, it feels better but I'm just not sure.
I hope Angus is alright, and kept our dog. I hope my mom's not given up on me yet, and will be there when I can go back to my life. I hope everyone's alright, and safe and warm and Laslo's paintings will still be there. I miss seeing them. I hope I'll start sleeping again soon, I quit what feels like forever ago. I really wish nights weren't so long, and that when I did sleep I wouldn't wake up thinking this had all been a dream, only to roll over and feel nothing beside me. Most of all, I just wish he'd come back.
Thank you for reading. I know it's got to be just as dificult to read as writing it.
Iris