Esenwein on SubscribeStar.com

Paradise to Us

Tags - PTSD, Death, Car Accidents, Grief, Aging, Medical Issues, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Religion, Hate Crimes, Found Family

You know you were my entire world, right? No, you were my universe, and I have hated everything since the moment you left me. Martin Vazquez, since the moment we met, you have been absolutely everything to me, and I would give anything just to see you smile one more time. I love you like I’ve never loved anything, and I miss you more than I ever thought anyone was capable of missing anything. My body aches all over all the time, and there’s this unfamiliar pain in my chest that I don’t understand.

I saw my cardiologist, after your sister, Agatha, made me, but they said everything was fine. They said my pacemaker was functioning perfectly, the only problem was that I’d gone and had my heart broken. You’d think that having my heart fail me once in a lifetime would be enough, but apparently not.

I remember the last time I saw you like it was only seconds ago. I still live in that moment, to be honest, because I know that once I let it go, you’ll be gone. I was in a bad mood. because I was having trouble with my computer again. You were in an amazing mood, because of course you were, and you made me a pancake with a smiling face made of blueberries on it, hoping to cheer me up. I wasn’t feeling well, but I finished it, anyway, because you’d made it for me.

You were playing some awful modern music because you thought you were cool and hip, and it was turned up much too loud because your hearing was beginning to go. You kissed me before you went out to ride your bike around the block a few times. I was happy, but I didn’t appreciate that morning enough. I had become spoiled by our beautiful life together. I would have appreciated it more if I had known that it would be our last.

You were hit by a mustard yellow car seventeen feet and four inches from the end of our driveway. I saw it all happen, but it was too fast for me to do anything about it. The car came out of nowhere. It was going exactly twenty-three miles over the speed limit. It was a hit and run, but the driver came back a few hours later.

I learned later that she was rushing her son to the hospital because he’d suddenly started seizing on the way to school. The worst part is that I couldn’t blame her. Either of us would have done the same thing if it had been our family member seizing uncontrollably in the backseat.

You still aren’t supposed to be dead. You weren’t young, but you were too young to die. You were only sixty-three, and you were healthier than I ever was, even at twenty. You rode your bike every day that the weather allowed it and you went swimming at the gym a few times a week. I think that death must be worse when it comes so unexpectedly. We were so happy. We never saw it coming.

Your funeral was crowded with family, friends, and people who we barely knew but felt the need to show up and explain why your death was so hard for them personally. I never liked people, but I knew that you would want me to be patient, so I did my best. Agatha’s husband, Rick, organized everything, because he’d always been good at taking charge when we needed him to. Everyone said it was a beautiful service, but I thought it was ugly, horrifyingly so.

The man I loved was dead, and I watched as they lowered your coffin to the ground. I have never seen anything so terrible or unfair. I was supposed to die first. I was the one with the pacemaker and the weak heart. I was the one with all those pills to take every morning with breakfast and every night before bed. I was the one with the stiff legs and the sore neck. You were healthy. You should still be here right now, but you aren’t. I was never prepared to outlive you.

Agatha’s granddaughter, Skylar, who I know was always your favorite, has been trying to convince me to get on dating apps. She says that you would want me to be happy, and I know she’s right, but I can’t imagine a life with anyone but you. I can’t imagine loving anyone nearly as much as I loved you, and I can’t imagine being satisfied with loving anyone less. I was supposed to have a lifetime with you, but now you’re rotting in the dirt six feet under, and I’m turning seventy in June.

I was never really into birthdays, my family never celebrated them growing up, but yours did, and they wanted to celebrate mine. I remember the first birthday party you threw me, I had never been so surprised or annoyed, but when I saw how excited you were, I couldn’t help but be excited, too.

It’s been almost four years since you died, but I can’t stop thinking about the birthday party I was supposed to have. You were going to invite everyone we knew because I’m turning seventy, and your family has always gone all out on parties when someone’s beginning a new decade. I don’t want to begin a new decade without you.

I still live in our house, the one we bought because you fell in love with the stray cat who was sitting on the porch when we looked at it, and it’s getting harder for me to keep up with as my legs have been growing stiff lately. Your nephew, Jonah, says that I should sell our house. He finally got his real estate license, and he says that the market’s better than it’s been in a long time. I remember when we first moved in.

We painted all the walls different shades of green and redid the staining on the floor and molding so that it was all a dark chocolate brown like the color of your eyes. It only took a few weeks for the stray cat to move in and have kittens - all of which you became emotionally attached to and couldn’t bear to part with - in our linen closet. There were so many of them that I thought we’d have their descendants living in our house for the rest of our lives, but they’re all gone now. I don’t know how that happened.

Jonah says that I should sell our house and buy a smaller, one story house closer to town. But I can’t go, not when I see you around every corner. I see you sitting on a bar stool at our island, telling me I was right about getting the gold-tinted marble for it. I see you sitting at our table, playing cards or blowing on soup. I see you kneeling on the floor in front of the sink, insisting that we don’t need a plumber.

I see you sitting on your side of the couch, doing your crossword puzzles as we watched television. I see you soaking in our tub, reading a library book, even though you’d dropped countless books, and newspapers, and grocery lists into the water once your hands had grown weak. I see you lying across our bed, looking at me with your hungry eyes which never lost their effect on me over the years. I see you everywhere, because there was no part of my life that you weren’t a part of, too. I miss you, Martin.

I remember the day we finally got married. It was strange, trimming our beards and putting on our good suits, even though, really, we had been married since that day in Agatha’s backyard. My parents hadn’t been there - they didn’t approve of our love - but your whole family showed up, even your cousins from down in Florida, and they told me I was one of them now. Your uncle was a preacher, and he declared us husbands, even though back then, no one thought that marriage between two men would ever be legal.

All our queer friends were there, even Tina, who had grown flaky after her girlfriend moved to Washington D.C. for work. We laughed, and drank, and imagined a future where we didn’t have to settle for make believe weddings in your sister’s backyard. We imagined a future where we could tell the whole world who we were and no one would bat an eyelash. We imagined a future where we could hold hands or, heaven forbid, kiss in public without fearing for our safety.

You weren’t afraid of anything back then. You hadn’t been broken yet, and neither had I. We didn’t know what life had in store for us. I don’t know about you, but even if I had known, I wouldn’t have chosen anything else. I grew up down in Georgia, and my family was very religious.

I was raised believing that to love another man was a terrible sin, that the way my heart sped up when Jason Miller smiled at me like that was the devil’s doing. I was told that love between two men or two women was unnatural, that there were only two genders, which always aligned with your biological sex, that sex outside of marriage was the worst thing imaginable, and that anyone who faltered was going straight to hell.

I didn’t learn that none of that was true until I left home for college in New York, and I didn’t know that there was a God who loved everyone until I met your family and they accepted me wholeheartedly, and I understood what following God was supposed to be like. I came out to my family after that, and they disowned me.

I wonder now if I had been born a few decades later, if things would have been different. It was a different time then, but I was still their son. It took me a long time to heal from that, and some days I don’t think I completely have, but being a part of your family - who loves unconditionally - helps me more than anything else.

We got legally married as soon as the Supreme Court gave us permission. It was a rainy day, perfect to spend curled up on the couch, but you dragged me out of bed at the crack of dawn so we could both get ready and be at the courthouse as soon as possible. We brought your whole family, and all of us stood in line for hours. The streets were flooded with other gay couples, most of them much younger than us, but none happier or more in love.

Legal marriage had never mattered to me, what we had was all that mattered to me. You were all that mattered to me. Our wedding in Agatha’s backyard was enough for me, but not for you. You had always cared about justice and injustice. You have always wanted what all the straight couples have. You wanted churches, and wedding rings, and kids, and for people not to look at you differently once you introduced me as your husband.

I remember when they spray painted all those horrible things on the front of our house. We had just gotten home from dinner, and as we pulled into the driveway, we saw that all the neighbors were crowded around our driveway. In all our time together, I have never seen you so angry as you were that night.

You called the police and demanded that they find out who was responsible for this, while I just drove to the closest store that sold paint to hide what they had done to our home. You loved me, and you were never ashamed of that, but you didn’t want it to be noteworthy. You just wanted us to be able to go about our life without anyone caring that we were gay.

The police never found the people who defaced our home, but I don’t think they looked very hard. They said that these things just happened sometimes. I was willing to accept that, but you weren’t. You were the sort of person who attended every march and protest. You were the sort of person who believed in a better future, and I was the sort of person who just accepted how things were. You were the light of my life, Martin. You made me better.

We met in one of those secret clubs for gay men over four decades ago. I had helped found the place, along with two close friends of mine. We called it The Closet Factory, because most of us weren’t out except in that building, and it was on Main Street in the old shoe building. They’d boarded up the windows and abandoned the place, so the three of us painted the inside a mustard yellow, threw out the old wooden shelves, and hung rainbow banners from the ceiling. It wasn’t much, but it was paradise to us.

Every new face was full of possibility to me, being young and single, but when I first saw you, Martin, you were all I could see. I have never even looked at another man since. It was love at first sight for me. You were definitely interested, but I fell harder. I knew right away that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, and I did.

Right now, I’m sitting on my side of the couch, wondering where all the years went. The thing is, I remember every moment that I ever spent with you. Before you, my life was dull and faded. Before you, I was not myself. I was dedicated to being someone I was not to please people who could never be pleased. You were always pleased. You were a ray of metaphorical sunshine, smiling and full of hope. You were the love of my life, and I will never love anyone like I loved you. I don’t want to love anyone like that.

I am not nearly as happy as I was when you were with me, but I am content here in our house, because I see you everywhere. Every nook and cranny is filled with your memory, and I will spend the rest of my life here, even as the house falls apart around me. I close my book, which has been lying open and neglected in my lap for quite some time now, and I slide into myself, because, apparently, this is all I know.

We had a good life. I know that things weren’t fair, and that money was tight, and that we didn’t get everything we dreamed of having, but we had a good life. I wouldn’t change anything. I know it wasn’t much, but it was paradise to us.

Subscription Tiers

Welcome

Posts

Star Stats

Goals

Other stars

Features

Your Privacy Choices