Time does not heal wounds. Time is what passes while you learn to live without the one person who meant the world to you. And it will be the hardest thing you ever do because you have to do most of it alone.

Today was his 33rd birthday. He will never be 33 though. Time, as we know it, stops for them. They are forever the person in the last photo you took of them.

The last picture I took of Will was on Christmas Day of last year. There are several of him and our daughter. She is smiling, holding the doll that I told her that her daddy had picked out especially for her. He is propped up in a recliner. His head lolling to one side. His eyes sightless and staring.

He was slightly agitated that day. Maybe he was aware? As much as I want to believe that he knew we were there and that it was Christmas Day, the bigger part of me hopes that he never had any idea. The thought of him being aware and unable to communicate that. Knowing but completely cut off to the point. That all he heard was noise and every touch or movement was startling and frightening. His every waking moment a nightmare of sensory deprivation. I hope that is not what was happening.

No one remembered that it was his birthday. It was just me, standing in the middle of the kitchen with the only candle I could find, a number four that had sat on our daughter’s birthday cake this last summer. I lit it with one of his old Bic lighters that I hadn’t thrown away. It was pink and blue and had smiley faces on it. I sang “Happy Birthday” to him and cried.

I wonder if that is how it will always be.  I fear it might. Time is a bitch. It will not heal me or make anything better. Once again that is all left up to me.