Anticipatory Grief

I think I’ve always been a friend to loss. It comes to me like an old companion. Uninvited, yet familiar. I’ve lost my grandad, my father, a friend, and the person I was supposed to become. One by one, they slipped through the cracks of time, and I stood there, hands empty, pretending I was strong enough not to feel the ache. And now, quietly, I’m beginning to understand that I might have to lose you too.

I’m not ready. I’m still clumsy in the presence of absence, still startled by the silence that follows someone's leaving. I keep thinking if I practice enough, if I prepare myself in advance, then maybe the eventual goodbye won’t ruin me. Maybe it will feel more like a soft closing door than a sudden collapse.

But you... You are kind, tender, warmth. A soft place in a loud world. And the thought of losing you.. It already aches.

I lose you constantly. I lose the version of you who laughed over ramen just hours ago. I lose the childlike wonder in your eyes while you searched for dinosaur figurines. I even lose the tenderness of your lips pressed to my cheek, not twenty minutes past. Each version of you disappears into memory as the seconds slip away and no matter how tightly I try to hold them, they vanish, one after another, like smoke in my hands.

I wish I could frame these moments, keep them still, untouched by time. But time isn’t kind like that. It keeps moving, and it takes everything with it. It will take you, too. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. And I fear that day more than I can say.

Because what if you’re gone before I’ve finished learning how to lose you?