All the little details

These are what I’m most scared of losing. I know I will never forget your radiant smile, the way your nose crinkled when you found something extra funny, the mixed hazel of your eyes. But will I always remember your acid-washed t-shirts, a size or two too big? Will I recall the color of your nails, a soft lavender, when I proposed? Now I will, because I’ve written them down. What scares me is that there are things I’ve already forgotten and it’s too late.

How can I remember more? I’ve tried, in vain, to research it. To find answers about how to open my mind to find these morsels of information. Whenever I look, all the internet gives me is suggestions on how to name a star after you, which I’ve already done (for free), and which I’ve learned is kind of nonsense because no one’s regulating the whole business. Your star is known by UCAC3-Identifier 103557351, and it’s in Taurus. Someday I’ll find a way to see it, maybe even at the observatory nearby.

My brain is so tired and so sad that I know I’m losing the details even as I write this now. I want to remember every little thing and I know that I can’t. I try to picture what your hand looked like gripping your toothbrush, but I can’t. I know you almost always had a blanket over your legs, but did you pull it all the way up or did it rest around your lap? You pet the cats differently than me. What was the secret technique? Is that why Dinkie preferred you? I think so, and I think you told me that, but I don’t know if I can trust even my own faint memory anymore.

Attention to detail was always your strong suit, not mine. I could remember a ton of information if I was looking out for it but it didn’t come naturally to me. I hate that so much of why you were better at remembering those tiny details is because of your hypervigilance. I wish you could have just relaxed. I wish I could have prevented all the horrible things that happened to you before we met, and all the horrible things that happened while we were together, too.

When I visited your Animal Crossing island a few weeks after you passed, I cried multiple times. I cried when Cranston came over to your house. You loved him so much. I cried looking at the half-finished renovations. What made me the saddest was trash beach, or rather its lack of existence. You must have been in the middle of moving stuff around when you set the game down for the last time. I remember making fun of your beaches, covered in random items, and laughing so hard together. What a beautiful and harmless way to enjoy stuff. You cared a lot about your things being high quality and didn’t want to be branded as materialistic for that. I don’t think you were at all. I think you just really cared.

Looking through photos, I keep finding ones I don’t remember having seen before, and even ones I’m in or took myself that look brand new. I can remember all the Halloweens we dressed the cats up in their silly little costumes. We did two this past year. They were buy one get one free, and since it was only a week after your first chemo, I thought the laughter from dressing Bacon and Dinkie in two sets of costumes would be worth it. I found several early pandemic ones that have no logical explanation, like one where you have whiskers made of duct tape and you’re laughing hysterically. I wish I knew what the hell was going on there. More details that have slipped. At least I have the photo.

Anyway, all of this is to say, I love you, I miss you, and I wish I could remember every little thing. Please keep sending me reminders.