Katie, Katie, Katie...

Today suddenly and out of nowhere he chanted your name 3 times in a row. It was the saddest and most beautiful thing I may have ever heard. He released your name into our awkward (& stubborn) surrounding air with a mix of ritualistic chanting type tones and a bit of the sing song rhythm that’s in a familiar nursery rhyme. It broke my heart before I could ask myself why.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask why. Why would I allow myself to be so influenced or heart broken by the past of someone I do not really “know” or care to know for that matter. I said out loud that I knew you in some hopeless attempt to abandon the strangeness of it all. He continued to ask what happened to you. The man beside me, his father answered, “She moved away.” He said it so quickly and without heart or hesitation. It actually frightened me the manner in which he replied.

The child went on. He asked next whether his father was saddened by your sudden disappearing act. There was a silence so I answered for him in front of our holy universe, his mother and his son… I said, “He was VERY sad”. His son was not satisfied with this and needed more. Maybe something tangible or worthy of a reason; how or why you could have left so he asked, “Why don’t you go get her, so you can be happy again?”

My heart is so incredibly broken for those you have scathed, knowing that I've too done the same but luckily somehow avoided this fault thus far. It’s the betrayal of a helpless and lonely child. Not just of the man who happens to be his father. I can never even hope to fill the kind of void you’ve left behind. Should I give up? This is exactly why I’m so heart broken living everyday with the man (and his children) that you needed to leave behind.