Life on Point

I was going to write more chapters, fill this story up with the pages of our relationship. Of the magic picnic we had in the park two years after we found each other again – where she sat on my lap, her hand entwined with mine and, most miraculously of all, she ate. Perhaps I should tell you that every morning I woke up next to her perfect, smiling, sleepy face my heart jolted. That despite being non-religious I prayed to God every day to tell him how thankful I was for her. I should write every detail of her courageous coming out, her bold public declaration of love me. I should, in all honestly, recount to you every detail of her. Every part that had made Libby so special.

But I can’t. Call it selfishness, call it love, call it pain. Call it whatever the hell you want. The fact remains that I just can’t bring myself to do that – to lose myself in the past when we have been robbed of a future. However, there are still so many things left to say. To end it here would be an insult to you, and an insult to her memory.

I want you all to know so many things. To know the way which she bravely fought for recovery, day by day, mouthful by mouthful. I wish you could have seen the beautiful miracle of her ribs no longer sticking out so much, her no longer being agonised through hunger. Whenever I saw her eating I was so proud – she won the war one battle at a time. And that in itself was something remarkable.

I want you to understand how hard and how long I screamed when the doctors told us her kidneys had finally given up. Screamed until my throat bled. Screamed until she had to hold me. Screamed some more at the fact I should be the one holding her. To die must indeed be painful, but to be left behind – that is nothing short of hell.

I owe it to you to explain how it happened. How my beautiful, beautiful Libby died. The anorexia, despite losing most of its vicious hold on her mind left its impact on her body. There were a myriad of bastard health problems, weeds that crushed her tightly and completely. Her organs grew weak, her bones grew brittle, her body began to give up. She could no longer dance for the pain. This disease robbed her even of that, of the one place she had managed to find relief. So in a way I suppose it’s true to say I was glad when the end came, glad when she left me. When her body grew unbearably still, her lips horrifically cold, her limps sickening limp.

The pain for me then was unbearable, I could not breathe, I could not cry – I just sat there and felt pain like I have never experienced it before – agony so strong I thought I would die. Die, and join her. Die, and be happy. Happy like I hoped she now was.

Life is not so kind as to take me too. I was, instead, forced to face a life alone. A life without her singing the songs from musicals under her breath in the shower, a life without anyone to kiss me goodbye in the morning, hold me close when I was hurt, know my emotions somehow even before I did. A life without her. I didn’t want to live that life, not at first anyway. Not for months. I just existed, forced myself to breathe, forced myself to wash, to eat, to sleep.

And then I heard an old cliché in some sappy drama on TV, another of those annoying phrases said by fortune cookies, Hollywood films and idiots. “It is better to have lost and loved then never to have loved at all.” And despite my crippling pain, my heartbreak, despite everything I was feeling I was forced to accept its truth.

I would not have traded one second of my time with Libby, not any of it, not even the end. I loved her as a hapless teenager: sneaking me kisses in the toilets with adorable, but sometimes infuriating, self-consciousness. I loved her as a brilliant 20 year old: taking my breath away constantly, dancing to an audience that were mesmerised by her movement, by the way she melted in to the music in a way that was never seen before. I loved her even when she was gripped my her disease: the way she could sometimes be so strong and so powerful despite everything, her unending optimism, her beautiful smile, the way she whispered my name as she drifted off to sleep. I loved her as she recovered: determination set on her face every time she sat in front of food, the fact that being with her made me feel calm and grounded, the way she would leave clues written on shreds of paper around the house that would eventually lead to a little gift like a bracelet or a chocolate or once just her, naked and beaming from ear to ear. I wouldn’t have traded a second of that for anything in the world.

So I suppose the cliché rings true. I am so glad I met Libby Gaiman, so thankful for her. I no longer curse and scream God for taking her away from me.

Instead, once again I thank him unendingly for sending her me in the first place.