Three Words You Never Want to Hear

Gerard,

I can’t begin to tell you how much I miss you.

It’s been months now, but no matter how much time passes by, the pain of missing you never seems to fade.

Everyone around me keeps telling me that the pain will be easier to cope with as time goes on, that I’ll somehow learn to live with it until one day it just isn’t hard anymore. I don’t believe it. There is absolutely no way that the pain is just going to one day vanish. How can a pain so sharp and piercing ever become unnoticeable? Sure, maybe I’ll be able to live with the pain, but get rid of it entirely? Maybe that’s what they mean. That someday the pain will be so constant that I’ll almost forget it’s even there. It’ll become a part of me.

My mom is constantly hovering over me, as if her presence will make me forget about you entirely. She’s persistent that we spent ‘quality’ time together, but to be honest, being around her just makes your loss all the more real. Before I lost you, my mom and I barely saw each other, the best being an occasional meet up over coffee, or running into each other in the local supermarket. Now, she seems to think that she needs to be with me all the time, as if I might off myself if she turns her back on me for even a second. To be honest, I don’t blame her.

I can’t say the thought of joining you hasn’t crossed my mind. In fact, every day I contemplate the fastest and least painful ways in which I could do it. Life without you ceases to matter, there’s just nothing left for me anymore. I’m not trying to be melodramatic, and I know I promised you I’d be strong when you were gone, but I just can’t do it anymore. It’s too hard. With every breathe I find it harder to actually fight for my life, like I just can’t even see a point to breathing anymore if you’re not here to do it with me. My chest hurts when I think of you, even for a second. To think that there was nothing that I could do to save you, or even comfort you, is the hardest fact to deal with. There’s a huge hole in my chest where you once were, and nothing in this world will ever even begin to fill it. I can pretend to move on, I can fake a smile and start a meaningless relationship with someone else, but the hole where you once were can never be fixed. It’s a distraction. The pain will never end.

Even though life before I knew you was perfectly fine, perfectly liveable, knowing you has made me release just how much I was missing out on before you. It makes me wonder how I ever lived at all before you. You showed me just how glorious life can be. You gave me hope in a world full of pessimists, you showed me that life can only get better when given the sources to fully live. You were that source, Gerard. You gave me an upgrade on a life that I didn’t even know needed upgrading, but once you’d done it, shown me that there was a better quality to life with you in it, I could never go back to the way things were. I can’t see a world without you in it.

If I could turn back time and never meet you, I wouldn’t. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how many tears I cry in the light of your absence, I would never take a single moment that we shared together away. Even though remembering our time together brings me to tears every time, I would never want to forget you. Knowing you was the best thing that ever happened to me. And the worst.

I try to smile like everyone else when recollecting memories of us, but it just comes out as a grimace, and everyone can see that I’m falling apart. Mikey seems to be doing okay, at least to everyone around him, but I can see how much he’s hurting. I see the fake way he smiles as your grandparents recall an old story of you running around in your diaper pretending to be a superhero. I hear his voice breaking, quivering with every word he speaks, as though he has to give everything he has just to utter a single syllable. I see the way he looks through me now, as if I don’t even exist, as if him acknowledging me would be some kind of hideous reminder of loosing you.

I picked up the razor again.

I’m sorry, Gerard, but you don’t understand and you never will now. You don’t have to go through this, you don’t have to know life without me. I get that you had to go through pain, I get how hard this whole ideal was for you, I understand how much suffering you endured and how so very scared you were. I feel for you, in fact, I’m pretty sure I’m carrying enough pain for the entire population of America right now. But Gerard, you will never know what it’s like to be without me because now you’re just… you’re just gone. And no, don’t give me this bullshit that you’re up in the sky, chilling on the clouds and talking to the big man himself, because we both no that’s not where you are. Heaven is created as a coping mechanism, a story taken out of thin air created solely for the purpose of making us feel better about death. You don’t exist anymore. And… it hurts knowing that. You have no idea how much that hurts. To realise that the person you love is just gone. So don’t lecture me about the whole cutting thing, okay? I know it’s wrong and I shouldn’t do it but it makes me feel better. No one around here wants me and I know that I’m just a constant reminder of how fucked up everything became whenever Mikey sees me. He doesn’t need me in his life. I’m just a reminded of the past that he wants to move on from. But I can’t move on.

I can’t.

I need you, Gerard. I know it’s ridiculous, writing a letter to you as if you can actually read it, as if you might actually reply. But what else can I do? There’s so much I never got to say to you, so much we never got to do together and I feel like I need to get it all out somehow. It’s stupid I know, and hypocritical since I was the one two minuets ago slagging off the very idea of coping mechanisms and yet here I am, writing letters to my dead lover who I am never going to see again.

God, I wish… I don’t know, okay? It’s just not fair.

I just want to thank you, Gerard. I want to thank you for teaching me a better quality of life. For loving me, and giving me everything that I could have ever wanted. The only thing I could ever ask for is for our love to have lasted forever, but we both know that was never possible even from the start. Everyone dies. Every couple is eventually separated. We are infinitely, and utterly alone.

You know what? I can’t do this anymore.

I’m ending it, and you can’t stop me because….

You’re dead.

I love you. And I know that I am in love with a memory, and that my feelings are directed at someone that no longer exists, but the feelings won’t go away no matter how hard I urge them to. So, goodbye, Gerard. Thank you for giving my life meaning.

Frank xo



This was the letter I wrote for Gerard a few months after his passing.

You should know that I could never have gone through with it, no matter how heart broken I was. Despite how I was feeling, I knew, deep down, that there were still a selected few that still needed me in this world. As I picked up that razor, my fists clenched around it as if it held the answer to all my problems, I pictured those very few people.

My mom, my dad, even Mikey, who I was so sure hated me after the death of his brother.

It felt good, relieving, to write a suicide note, especially addressed to Gerard. It allowed me to empty all my feelings out onto paper, directed at someone I loved and trusted with them more than anything in this world. I had written hand fulls of suicide notes after his death, all addressed to him. Yet every time I tried to go through with it, it wasn’t just the thought of everyone else that I cared about stopping me, it was the thought of how Gerard would react if he knew that I had given up and broken my promise to him. A part of me tried to contradict this argument in my mind, because Gerard was dead, so it didn’t matter what he thought anymore, but I couldn't bring myself to betray him that way no matter what.

There’s no hiding that Gerard’s condition worsened as we waited in that hospital for the doctor to give us the green flag that we could take him home, that it was just another close call. But that moment never came.

It’s hard for me to recall Gerard’s last moments, every time I try to write it down, I break down and start shaking uncontrollably. But, the story must be told.



I walked into the small hospital ward, my eyes darting straight to where Gerard lay.

He looked so fragile. I mean, he had always looked fragile, but up until this moment I think a small part of me had denied just how very fragile he was. It was clear from his posture, from his whole frame just how close to the end he was, just how very weak this disease had made him. It had literally rid him of every ounce of muscle on his body, he was practically a skeleton. His cheek bones stuck out in a gruesome manner, and his eyes sank into his head more than I’d let myself notice. There were dark circles beneath them both, making him look as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.

“Frank,” he let out through a shaky breath, his limp hand twitching slightly as if he were trying to reach for me.

Mikey turned to face me, his eyes heavy. This was what a broken man looked like. This was the moment that I saw all hope drain from Mikey’s eyes. This was the moment he had finally let himself realise that he was loosing his brother.

I walked over to them both, trying my hardest to put on a brave face, at least for Gerard.

“I’m okay, Frank,” Gerard smiled, his eyes shutting as he said it. “Mm, fine.”

I shook my head, a lump in my throat. I looked down at the ground, ashamed that I couldn’t even look at him without letting my guard down. I didn’t want him to be scared.

“I know,” I whispered, being fully aware that this was the first time Gerard and I had purposely lied to each other to try and suppress our emotions. Through this whole journey we had promised we would be truthful until the very end, but I could see now that the end had finally arrived, the best form of play was to act as if it didn’t hurt so much. I didn’t want Gerard to be scared.

“Can you give us a moment alone?” Gerard whispered, one of his eyes lazily resting on his brother. Mikey seemed reluctant to move, and I didn’t blame him. “Please.”

Mikey nodded, his lip quivering.

My heart pounded faster than it has ever pounded in my life. I couldn’t do it. I never wanted this moment to come.

I grabbed Mikey’s wrist hastily as he stood up to leave, not thinking. I was terrified.

Our eyes connected, and I knew that Mikey could see the panic and desperation in mine. I don’t know what I wanted, I guess I just didn’t want this to be the end. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I didn’t want to be alone, not here in this room in this very moment, not ever. Mikey nodded, squeezing my hand gently as he pried me from his arm. I nodded back, not knowing what our silent agreement meant, and knowing that he meant to leave me alone now.

“Sit,” Gerard whispered, a faint smile on his pale lips. “Please.”

I obeyed, taking one last look at Mikey as he left the room. We were alone.

“I can’t do this,” I croaked, grabbing Gerard’s hand with perhaps a little too much grip for someone with his lack of strength to handle. “Don’t leave me.”

“I don’t have a choice,” he whispered, his eyes still firmly shut, a grim smile still upon his lips. “We knew this day was coming… eventually.”

I shook my head, my other hand grabbing onto Gerard’s tiny arm. “No.”

“I’m dying,” he wheezed, his smile finally fading. “This is it.”

”No,” I repeated, more firmly this time. “You can survive, I know you can… I’ve seen it. I’ve seen cancer survivors..”

“I’m so tired,” he whispered, his eyes fluttering, as if he were trying to open them. “So tired.”

“Don’t you dare,” I breathed, perhaps a little too harshly. “Don’t leave me.”

“Frank,” his voice was barely audible now, I had to lean forward to hear him. “I love you.”

It took me a moment to reply, my voice thick when I did. “I love you. Please…. please don’t go…”

“I have to.”

”No. Gerard, please… I love you!” My voice rose, a lot louder than it needed to be. “I can’t live without you here… don’t do this to me.”

“If it were… my choice… I’d stay with you forever.”

“So then stay.”

“Mm, tired.”

“Gerard Arthur Way, don’t you dare dye on me!”

“Bye,” he whispered, his eyes suddenly going still beneath his eyelids.

No.

“No!” I screamed, jumping up from the bed and grabbing his shoulders. “No, no, no, no, no!” I shook him, his whole body limp in my arms. “Wake up! Wake up!”

“Gerard!” Mikey yelled, pushing me roughly aside. “Nurse! Someone! Help!”

Everything from then on out was a blur.

A nurse, a doctor, Mikey stood helplessly beside them. Sobbing. From either me or Mikey I’m not sure. Yelling. Definitely from me. My heart felt like it was resting in my mouth, pumping frantically away as I struggled to breathe, watching the one person I loved more than anything in the world leave me.
Gerard Arthur Way didn’t die heroically.

He died, right there, on the operating table. His eyes never reopened.

That, was the worst day that I have ever had to live through. That was the day that I released that happy endings don’t exist. This was real life. There was no epic goodbye, no last kiss. I hadn’t even said goodbye back to him. I’d just let him fall asleep.