In Memoriam

Here I sit at my desk at work, sobbing as I type this.

I've come to the conclusion that the only way I'm going to be able to get past all this is to pretend that David is dead. I mean, what the hell...I've already been grieving for him, for the potential he had, for what life could have been like for him and for us, if not for his drug problem. So why not just act like he's no longer here? It wouldn't be that much of a stretch.

I have plenty of good memories of him that make me smile:

I remember the first time we went to the movies together, in the summer of 1997 when we'd first started dating. The theater's air conditioning system was running at full-blast and I was freezing. Seeing me shiver, David pulled his t-shirt up over his head and gave it to me to put on over my shirt! He stayed shirtless for the whole movie. That made me feel so loved.

I remember going to a whole bunch of concerts with him...The Who, Goo Goo Dolls, Fleetwood Mac, Rage Against The Machine/WuTang Clan. He is the person who introduced me to concerts, and he's the reason that I enjoy going to concerts now.

I remember the day we decided to go to Clementon Park, an amusement park that our entire school used to visit once a year to celebrate the end of the school year. We hadn't been there since we were about eight years old. We drove all the way to Jersey and realized, as we pulled up to the entrance of the park, that we were the only white people there! It looked like the Million Man March. We had a good laugh about it, then drove down to the shore and spent the night at a motel in Wildwood instead.

I remember going to Wildwood another time, for a weekend. We stayed at a hotel across the street from the beach. One night at sunset, we made love on the beach right at the water's edge. It was like a scene out of a movie. Afterwards, David found a stick and wrote in the wet sand, "Lori I Will Love You 4Ever" and drew a heart around it. He boosted me up on his shoulders and I took a picture of it. I wish I could find that photograph.

I remember going to a friend's wedding with him and having the best time ever. The videographer filmed us slow-dancing for the duration of an entire song and we really hammed it up. We were totally in love...you would've thought that it was our wedding day. And the footage of us dancing actually made it into the final wedding video.

I remember going out dancing with him all night, sweating up a storm, kissing on the dancefloor, laughing together, making fun of other people. I loved those times.

I remember the times when he'd show up at my job, when I was still waitressing at the restaurant, with a bouquet of roses for me, or a stuffed animal.

I remember one time after we'd had an argument, he rode a bicycle from his house to mine one night and showed up on my doorstep to apologize. It was probably a fourteen mile roundtrip. That made quite the impression on me, that he would actually go to that trouble to say he was sorry.

I remember going to Marsh Creek and renting a canoe with him. We'd forgotten sunscreen and had picked what had surely been the hottest day of the summer to do it. It was sweltering and we were sure that we were going to melt! But we made the best of it anyway.

I remember going down to the shore with him, his mom, and his mom's boyfriend, who had a house right on the bay, complete with a little boat in the back of the house. David and I decided to sleep in the boat that night, and we awoke at sunrise being eaten alive by about a thousand mosquitoes! We jumped out of that boat so fast that it nearly capsized. I still laugh when I think about it...so funny.

I remember going into the city on the Fourth of July to watch the fireworks at the Art Museum with him. As we walked down Kelly Drive back to my car at the end of the night, a kid tossed an empty Snapple bottle from an overpass that we were just about to walk under. The bottle missed my head by about ten inches and shattered on the ground right in front of me, and David became so infuriated that he started screaming at the kid, threatening to kill him.

I remember going to the Observatory, which was the name of the softball field where we'd first kissed, on one of our anniversaries. David brought a little trashcan he'd filled with ice as a bucket for a bottle of champagne he'd bought. He popped the top off the champagne and we toasted each other, then kissed for hours as we sat by home plate.

I remember cuddling with him as we sat at Penn's Landing at night, overlooking the river, watching the ships pass by.

I remember going to the zoo with him. We went into the reptile house, and I hate, HATE snakes...he kept scaring the crap out of me by grabbing me unexpectedly and hissing at me. And I nearly jumped out of my skin every single time! Then we went into the lorakeet house and laughed our asses off as dozens of these little brightly-colored birds perched all over us.

I remember him accompanying me when I had to put down my dog Nikki. I held her in my arms while the vet gave her the shot, and David cried with me as Nikki went to sleep.

He was so damn cute. Funny and sweet and smart as hell, too. And more sensitive, deep down, than anyone could've ever imagined. Many people, not just me, loved him.

But I knew him. I could see the real him underneath the addiction and the manipulation and the lies and the anger and the despair. I saw who he really was, and I loved him even when his actions broke my heart over and over again. I was happier spending time with him, even when we did nothing at all, than I was anywhere and with anyone else. I tried so hard to be everything to him, but no one can be everything to anyone, which is a lesson I finally learned after three years.

I do believe that he truly loved me, and he did try to be a good boyfriend, but the power of his addiction was stronger. I understand now that the times he chose to use weren't meant as a personal insult to me; it's just that the drugs were a higher priority to him than I was. And I know he didn't like living like that. I can attest to that...I watched him struggle many times to overcome it. He did want to stop, I think, but he wasn't ready to use the tools that were available to him to help him stop. Also, I think he was very angry, not to mention confused, that he couldn't have "fun" (as he perceived it) like everyone else. He couldn't just have a beer or two, because it was a slippery slope that generally led to him using his drug of choice. I think he resented that.

Plus, his life was not normal. He had a sucky childhood. Never had any real guidelines for what a normal life was like. His father was an alcoholic philanderer, and his mom worked her fingers to the bone and tried her best to raise four kids, most times by herself. That's never easy. Also, he didn't have any real friends; he only hung out with losers and users. I may have been the only real friend David had ever had. Not that any of these things were excuses for his problems, but they were definitely contributing factors. And he knew it, too.

The one thing that haunts me happened just two months ago, that night at Applebee's when he kissed me again for the first time since August 2000. We were eating dinner and talking, and he asked me, "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?"

I thought about it for a minute and then said, "Invisibility, I guess. I would love to spy on people without them knowing."

He laughed and said, "Me too! And if I were invisible, I would hang out in your bedroom all the time and watch you get dressed every morning for work, and move your clothes around so that you'd stay naked for as long as possible."

I am smiling right now just remembering that conversation. But I've thought about my answer since that night, and I've decided that if I could have any superpower, it would not be invisibility. It would be the ability to travel backwards in time. Because if I could do that, then I would go back and change so many things for him: his childhood, his circumstances, everything that led up to his choice to start using drugs.

I know I can't do anything for him but go forward with my own life and hope for the best for him. Hope that he will finally find the courage and strength to walk away from that life forever. I don't know if that will ever happen, but I always hope it will. I must have hope; otherwise, where would I be? And if we are truly meant to be together, truly fated to be together, I have to put my faith in the Universe that we will find our ways back to each other. I have to trust that everything happens for a reason and realize that I have no control over the outcome.

I am glad, despite the heartbreak I've been living with lately, that we had the chance to share some beautiful times together in the past few months. He came back to me and I felt his love again, even though it was really just for a moment or two. I've missed him so terribly for the past six years, and I felt blessed to have had the chance to be with him again, to feel him inside of me again. When he entered me, when he cradled my head in his arms, when he kissed me over and over again so gently...every single moment we spent together, I truly felt like I was home again, for the first time in years. For me, David will always be home. No matter what. I will always have those lovely memories, and I am thankful for that.

I am so glad that the last words I heard him speak before I left him at the softball field that night were, "I love you."

And I'm so glad that the last words he heard me speak were, "I love you, David."

It's a damn shame he's gone. I will always miss him.