Us

The 100th day came and went quietly.

No dramatic weather. No choir of angels. No mysterious signs in the clouds, which honestly felt a little rude considering the occasion.

Just me, some candles, incense curling into the air like soft little ghosts, and the strange assignment of saying goodbye while actively trying not to cry. In Buddhism, the 100th day is believed to be when the soul has finished what it needs to finish and is ready to begin again. A fresh page. A clean slate. New shoes, spiritually speaking.

Apparently tears are discouraged.

Not illegal, just heavily frowned upon.

The idea is simple enough. Don’t cling too hard. Don’t make your loved one feel guilty for leaving. Let them go lightly, like releasing a balloon instead of gripping the string until your fingers burn.

I understood the assignment.

I did not ace it.

Still, I tried.

I remember sitting there, staring at the candlelight, thinking how absurd it was that Terry and I had already been apart for 100 days. We were never apart that long. Not emotionally, not physically, not even accidentally. We were annoyingly synchronized. Like a pair of old birds who somehow ended up sharing one branch and one very specific routine.

And now, somehow, it has been a whole year.

A year is a suspiciously long stretch of time.

Too long to say, “This just happened,” and yet somehow not long enough for my body to believe it. I still remember the exact feeling of his hand holding mine. The softness of his hair, slightly tangled, always doing whatever it wanted. Much like Terry himself.

Some things stay.

Not painfully.

Just persistently.

This morning, I found wild dandelions growing in the sun, bright and unapologetically yellow, like tiny pieces of optimism with absolutely no self-awareness.

Two of them together.

Of course.

Terry used to point at dandelions growing side by side and say, “Those are us.”

Then, without missing a beat, he would add, “We came from bird poops.”

As if this was somehow romantic.

As if love and bird droppings were naturally connected concepts.

And honestly, with him, they kind of were.

That was Terry. He could turn anything into comedy. A profound moment was never allowed to get too full of itself. He would poke a hole in it immediately, just enough to let the air out.

I miss that.

Not with the heavy ache people like to write poems about.

More like reaching into a pocket and noticing something familiar isn’t there.

A small absence.

A daily one.

People say time heals, which feels like one of those phrases invented by someone trying to leave a conversation early.

Time doesn’t heal.

It softens edges.

It teaches your heart how to carry weight differently.

Less like dragging a suitcase upstairs, more like wearing a coat you forgot you had on.

Still there. Just lighter.

And I like to think Terry is lighter too.

Free of pain. Free of struggle. Free of all the earthly nonsense that made things harder than they needed to be.

Hopefully somewhere peaceful.

Laughing at something ridiculous.

Probably still making terrible observations with complete confidence.

Maybe even finding dandelions.

In pairs, of course.