Aaron Aites: Two Years Gone
Have you ever cried so much that your whole face feels like one big bruise, a rainbow of pain writ invisibly upon it, and felt a throbbing behind your eyes, in your skull, that vibrates and robs you of the ability to think of much else? I know that feeling well.
It was two years ago, on April 28, 2016, that Aaron died. He was 46, a filmmaker, musician, lover of animals (and papa to our brood of four): a big, smart, gentle, generous, loving, witty, curious, and creative man. He was also sometimes depressed, occasionally bitter, often filled with a childlike delight, and too often financially blasé for my comfort. He was real: made of flesh, blood, astonishing grace and excruciating imperfection.
The actual moments of his death and immediate aftermath are etched into my memory and I’ve written about it elsewhere, as it is too large a thing to contain only inside of me. So too is his presence etched into me: being with him for so long changed the fabric of my DNA. I am the luckiest girl alive to have melded my heart and soul with such an exceptional man. And then, you know, not so lucky.
After his death came the long and foggy days. The cessation of time-based boundaries. Memories walked hand in hand with daily life. The existential torture of wondering where he was, IF he was, spun out endlessly before me. Of course I understood that he had died. But what is dying? Our lack of knowledge allows conflicting realities to co-exist. Here and gone. Gone and… here? His incomprehensible death-inflicted absence was baffling and my mind’s desperate and incessant scrabbling at the unsolvable problem exhausted me.
I lost all sense of purpose and plunged into depression. I’ve always been a driven and ambitious person. We, as a team, took on terribly hard odds in our work as independent filmmakers and even found a measure of success, although we always felt on the outskirts of anything resembling a film community. This was true even after one of our films became a bit of a cult hit, and another screened at Sundance and sold to a large distributor.
We were always on the very edge of poverty, putting everything we had into our work, but we made films that mattered to people. That expressed something about our perspective on the world. We sacrificed greatly to do so, but we did it together. And it was always worth it, because we were engaged in a truthful and honest pursuit and were together in building the future we envisioned.
And then… he was gone. And just like that, so was my sense of purpose. None of it seemed to matter anymore. The only thing that mattered, was where the fuck was he and why wouldn’t he come back to me already?
You know that feeling when you text someone you have a crush on, and you’re waiting for them to get back to you, and you’re on edge? But a day has passed, and you’re starting to think maybe they won’t write you anymore at all? That maybe they’re gone, having left behind nothing but a digital ghost of their presence, a string of texts that had promised something more? You keep checking your phone anyway, in a state of agitation. Losing someone is like that, only you have a lifetime of love with them, and plans for the future, and the memories of them being sick and then dying in front of you. But you keep checking your damn plastic-covered phone anyway. (I don’t know, this should probably go in the record books as the world’s worst analogy. My apologies to everyone else who has suffered a loss for minimizing it in this impossibly stupid way.)
Aaron kept not texting, not coming home, not being there, day after day. I lived in a state of suspense, subconsciously waiting for his return. I waited to hear his footsteps in the hall; his gait, lanky and confident, despite him never quite feeling comfortable in his own six foot, three inch frame. I wanted to get home from walking our dog, Grimsley, to find him in the living room reading post-game Knicks coverage in the Daily News.
I imagined him walking up behind me and enfolding me in his warm hug, the only place I have ever felt safe. I wanted to snuggle into him and smell his Burberry cologne (that doesn’t smell the same on me). I wanted to feel the unique pleasure of discussing creative puzzles with the man whose sense of aesthetics and truth I trusted implicitly.
So I waited. With his clothes taking up half of the closet, I waited. I knew he was gone, that he was dead, but the life that was now left to me — wholly defined by the void of his absence — was so wrong, that I just… waited for him to get home, for the universe to right itself.
Until, one day, the terribly fidgety feeling left me. I still talked to him, but I was no longer sure that I felt him. I had never actually been “sure,” but there were times when his presence felt visceral, whether through conjuring it in my mind and heart or because some aspect — some part of him — was present. Materialists may scoff at this, and that’s ok: they don’t know either.
Either way, time resumed. I became able to put sentences together, even ones that weren’t about him. I craved comfort and I sought it wherever I could find it, in places most would deem appropriate and also in more complicated spaces and relationships. None of it gave me what I needed, because what I needed was him. But some of it gave me what I wanted, at least: distraction. And more than that: new relationships, tentative steps toward being an individual in the world, instead of half of a 15 year couple and even longer creative and business partnership. All baby steps to finding myself in a suddenly re-arranged environment.
My ability to pass as someone not consumed with thoughts of their dead fiancé became complete. I worked, I went out, I watched movies and went to see bands, I went grocery shopping without breaking down at the sight of his favorite foods. Other things came too. Shame. Regret. Knowledge of my own monstrosity in our relationship. Depression. Anger. Flashes of joy. Bursts of desire. Lots and lots of guilt. I haven’t celebrated my birthday since he died, because it seems grotesque to celebrate being alive when he doesn’t get to be. It’s just run of the mill survivor’s guilt, the thing that suddenly inverts your world so pain is right and happiness is wrong. Just a standard clinging to the pain, so he knows I love him. So I can stay with him, or keep him with me.
It’s psychological torture, is what it is, and yet it can be addicting. The pain becomes comforting, even as it splits you apart. I know that space. It feels close to him. I am not who I was when he died, but that pain brings me as close to my raw center as I can ever be. He can find me there. Because somewhere deep down inside me, it feels like we’re just lost, he and I, and we just need to find our way back to each other. I know logically (which matters little to the heart) that it won’t be in this lifetime and that this lifetime may be all there is. But a girl can hope.
I now struggle to write another film, knowing that he won’t get to make it with me. Nearly paralyzed with the fear that I was only good with him. Feeling that I am half a person, half a unit now. I still don’t know how to live without him but I continue to be alive. Continue to define my changing self. And there is a path forward. There is a path that I can see. A path we started down a long long time ago, with our first film together, Until The Light Takes Us. A path that I’m now walking alone, that he doesn’t get to be on anymore, and one which is so much more daunting without him by my side. But it’s a direction to head in, and that’s something I didn’t have for a long time: a purpose. A lifeline.
At two years, even as I’m doing “better,” the struggle is real and constant. I am both the weakest and most vulnerable person I know and also the strongest for Just. Still. Being. Here. And I have done more than just not kill myself, something which continues to present itself as an option during dark and lonely stretches when I can’t imagine having the strength or desire to continue to live like this.
Despite that, I have traveled places, without him. I have shown our films, and done Q & A’s, without him. I have cared for our family of pets to the best of my ability, without him. I have written pieces on grief and mourning from which others have taken comfort and strength. I have let old, unworthy friendships die. (Not gracefully, if you’re wondering: I did send some nasty text messages to the people who abandoned me at the lowest point in my life, and I meant every damn word of them.) I have made new friends that I care about and enjoy and who inspire me. I have worked on forgiveness* and I have made really, really tiny advances. *Really, so tiny, but so rewarding and I wish I didn’t suck at this.
The fact that it’s been two years since Aaron died is jaw dropping. His death very much defines my current life and identity. It still takes up so many of my waking hours. It still leaves me curled in balls of helpless pain. And the dreams… Aaron and I have been together at night for two years. Not every night, and not all pleasant. In fact, in most dreams he’s leaving me or has left me and I’m trying to win him back — even my subconscious has no handle on death. In others he has given me advice, or had my back, or just been the warm, talented, witty man I will always adore.
But over time, even as my subconscious plays this out, night after night, my days have changed. I no longer just stare into space, speaking to him, lost in a fog of confusion and pain. I have accepted the unknowability of it all, and in so doing, the existential angst has been tamped down to a degree that allows me to have other thoughts. The pain is still there. It will always be there, I’m sure, but I have become used to it.
Right now I get about five good days a month: days that I feel pretty OK. Good even, despite the guilt. The first year there were none. I live from good day to good day, and try to be as productive as possible on the rest. I treasure the people in my life who make me feel less alone. I shower my animals with love. I get excited about new music and films and art and I wish I could share that excitement with him, but I try not to let it make me too sad that I can’t. I write, working on a project that is perhaps a bridge between our past and my future, even as writing those words makes me scream “Traitor!” at myself in my head.
At two years, the struggle continues. My world is still defined and dimmed by his absence. Without the support of family, and with most long-term friends having disappeared after Aaron’s death, I rarely if ever feel loved in an intimate, familiar way anymore. Certainly not in the way that he loved me, a love full of delight and interest, passion and curiosity, affection, admiration, and adoration. Whether I will love and be loved like that again is unknown. Having been loved and valued by him, I know that if the people in my life can’t see my value, it’s not because it isn’t there. It simply means I need to leave behind those who don’t seek out my company and appreciate my unique spark, and find the people who do.
Aaron gave me gifts that I don’t want to see wasted. He was the first to believe that I had something to say, and a way of both seeing and saying it that was interesting. Worthwhile. Not having had parents who loved me or nurtured my creativity or treated my AP scholastic and sports achievements as anything noteworthy, Aaron was the first person in my life to make me feel that I was worth anything at all. And that was just a starting point. He showed me a different way of listening to music, watching films, and engaging with art on a deeper level. He opened up a new world to me, a different way of living, really, of engaging and being engaged.
All I can do now is take my overflowing love and gratitude for him and try to make him proud, try to have him live on in my work, to the best of my ability. I am part of his legacy. As are the many people he touched with his art, and all the people he loved, strengthened, supported, encouraged, believed in, and shaped in ways small and large.
After two years, I know that Aaron is still my purpose in life, even as he is no longer by my side in realizing it. He is now and forever in my heart, in who I am, and hopefully some small amount of that will reach people through the things I create moving forward.
I’ve spent the last few days scanning photographs, and one thing is apparent: we lived an amazing life together. We made films, he made records and toured, we went to film festivals all over the world, rescued and loved a brood of animals, and did it all with our best friend and life partner by our side. As much as I miss my love, it was a good life. I am glad of that. He said as much to the ER doctor who first told him he had cancer. In fact, I remember his words clearly, “I’ve been very lucky, done a lot, I’ve seen the world and had a good life… I just wanted more time.” I wanted him to have more time too, and I wanted to have it with him. But he did live a good life, and I’m so grateful for that.
Aaron was a kind man who always had a unique and interesting and just damn perceptive way of looking at things. I miss getting to go through life with him. I miss feeling chosen, every day, by someone so amazing.
I love you, Aaron. I miss you so much. I hope you’re OK. I hope I’ll see you again. I hope you know how much I love, admire, and appreciate you. If you exist and you can hear me, then I know you do, because I tell you every day. You were magnificent. And if I’m very, very lucky after all, you still are. Thank you for joining your brilliant, beautiful soul with mine. We did some cool stuff together, babe. I hope I make you proud.
- **All my pieces on grief are free and unrestricted. I also publish a fiction series THE BLACK SEED (where I’ve also published an updated article on grief). If you liked this free piece, please check out my series and see the accompanying visual works by guest artists! I’m a writer and artist who is putting my life back together after a terrible loss, and I appreciate that very much. Thank you. https://www.patreon.com/audreyewell
- You can find the films I made with Aaron at Amazon, iTunes, etc. https://linktr.ee/audreyewell