His last breath of life

J is gone.
My love, my best friend, my soul-mate has left this world behind.

He died in the early morning hours of Tuesday. I had had an inexplicable, excruciating pit in my stomach until the moment I got the call that told me he was never coming back home.

I feel as if I am in a dream, an alternate reality within which the turning back of time seems almost possible. Last night, I just walked out my crowded house to go see his body at the funeral home. They had already locked the doors and I pretty much had to beg to be let in and allowed to see him before he was prepped for the service on Sunday. And how grateful I was that they let me. It was incredibly special to get to be alone with him.

As I stood over his body, I kept hoping he would just wake up. It was the lost child deep inside of me. The child who hasn't quite accepted or understood the physical world and its hard facts, yet. I cried, I talked to him, I scolded him, I apologized for having been so tough-loveish, I touched him, and I just looked at him for a very, very long time.

I have never lost anyone close to me and the pain is beyond anything I could have imagined. It literally feels as if someone has tightened a belt around my chest to the point at which it's just constant, inescapable pressure.

There is so much I want to write but I cannot find the words now. I am in a haze.... and I still need to write a eulogy, prepare images, a memory book, and a playlist for the service tomorrow.