© Dennett ~ Ben in Mount Dora, Florida, 2012

Member-only story

Dear Ben

Dealing with death

Dennett
2 min readJan 20, 2025

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Dear Ben,

Eight isn’t a large number except when it counts the months without you.

245 days sleeping and living alone — even that number seems small. My pain is so much larger and yet smaller than the countless days ahead without you. I can’t think beyond today or I will never move forward. Actually, I crawl forward. Reluctantly.

You said our neighbors would look after me if you left this earth. They don’t. Gina is my one true friend — the only person who checks on me.

Your death made me invisible.

I faced three hurricanes without you and now, a winter storm. Somehow, the bad weather is so much worse when you’re not here. It’s lonelier. I feel isolated, unnoticed.

I can entertain myself, but I miss human interaction — I get so little of it, even though I’m surrounded by people. Ironic, isn’t it?

My future is in limbo. So many pieces to connect and none fit right now. I’m in purgatory, being punished for what? I don’t know, but surely this pain is punishment for something. Someone said that grief is love with nowhere to go. To me, it feels like retribution for something I failed to do, something I forgot, something — no, someone I lost. Like your being gone is all my fault.

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Weeds & Wildflowers
Weeds & Wildflowers

Published in Weeds & Wildflowers

Stories of Dennett (Wildflower) & Ben (Weed) & Our Guests

Dennett
Dennett

Written by Dennett

I was always a writer but lived in a bookkeeper’s body before I found Medium and broke free — well, almost. Working to work less and write more.

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