Home Nowhere and Everywhere

August 5 this year came around like every other year. Yet, it wasn’t like every other year after I met Ryan on that day. 

It was the first year we didn’t wish each other ‘our first day we met’ anniversary. Looking back, I smile at how it was even more special than our engagement and wedding dates. Looking back, I cry and cry and cry some more… at the physical loss of my man. My everything!

Ryan wasn’t just my husband. He was also my best friend. I didn’t need anyone else and didn’t even care to have anyone else in my life with him around. It was the same with him. Together, we felt complete and didn’t really care much about the world.

He was also my safest place. What I mean by that is that I could cry literally like a baby in front of him, and just be me. He had a golden heart that truly cared and was empathetic. It’s ironic I met Ryan at one of my lowest phases and even as a stranger back then, he felt my pain like it was his own.

I remember the very first day I met him, and we went out for a walk. I noticed a barely noticeable slight limp as he walked. Suddenly, this grown-up man resembled a toddler who was trying to find his balance and walk. He brought out all my maternal instincts in that moment, and I wanted to protect him immediately.

Meeting Ryan for the first time didn’t feel like I was meeting a stranger. Meeting Ryan felt like home. In fact, when we moved to Los Angeles back in 2010 with our little daughter in tow, a cousin asked me how it felt moving away from the country. My response was, “Home is where the heart is.”

When Ryan had to move away from the country again for work a few years ago, we had to make a hard decision this time, prioritising our daughter’s education and future over our marriage. It was brutal for both of us, staying apart from each other. But we always waited, hoping we’d finally be living together soon, wherever that might be. Because our home was in each other. 

Home. How much that word has changed meaning in the last few months! Perhaps the hardest awakening of my life.

Ryan’s death has been an eye-opener in every way. My definitions of love, home, and family have drastically changed since Ryan’s earthly departure. At first, there was intense fear and sadness at the loss of a good man who was also my spouse and the father of my child. When you’re used to being in a loving, safe, and good marriage, it’s strange to suddenly be left on your own. The man you could run to and take refuge in when life got rough was no more. 

The past few months have been tough, radical, and transformative. It is still unfolding… as I write this. I’ve gone from being a person who wasn’t comfortable living life on my own to now being absolutely comfortable facing life alone in the next chapter of my life. Alone is no longer an alien word anymore. 

I’m not someone who needs a man. When Ryan had moved to the UK a few years ago, and we finally met after a few months, I told him how living apart made me realise how I didn’t need anyone. But I realised how much I wanted him. It was crystal clear that if I had to make a choice, it would be Ryan unanimously, every single time, over anyone else in the world. It had nothing to do with his looks, or titles, or any other material possession, and everything to do with the person he was.

I remember our first trip to Goa together, when it was the end of the month, and he was practically broke because he lend all he had to a rank stranger who lost all his belongings from his passport, wallet, and even his clothes when he went for a swim in the sea. That’s why I fell in love with Ryan, and continue to fall in love deeper with him, after he’s gone. It’s one thing to help someone in abundance, and another thing entirely to give all you have at the risk of you going broke. That was Ryan, a man who helped strangers who couldn’t do anything back for him, and didn’t even let his left hand know what his right hand did.

I cried every time I had to part from him. So much has changed, and yet nothing has changed… maybe everything’s a tad better, stronger now amidst all the hardships. I still cry like a baby alone in my room at the thought of not having him around with me anymore in the physical realm. Yet, I know he’s very much around me. Even more intimately closer than ever before when we could be physically entwined. 

I wake up every morning wondering how Ryan is. Where is he? How is he doing? Is he okay? Then I wonder, why I am even bothering to know how a dead person is. Today, I check myself, “Oh ye of little faith!” Ryan’s death is not a demotion but a promotion. He is where he should truly be, in the arms of the Lord. And who can care for him more than God, his creator! Not a mere earthly spouse, parent, or child. How dare we even try! 

Initially, I needed and begged for signs from him. And he sent many signs throughout the day. Sometimes as a Bible verse or reading, a song, something that catches your attention like a billboard as you’re going about your business in the city, and even a feather that lands out of nowhere onto your palm. Some of these signs are such sure-shot indications, like a private joke only the two of you would ever know, and no one else. I depended on these signs daily, like manna, to make it through the day. I needed the assurance that he was around.

Today, I no longer ask for signs. I’m learning to let go. Let him go in peace to where he truly belongs. His home. His home is with the Lord. Someday, if the good Lord deems me worthy, I will be united with them in our eternal home. Until then, this is my path, journey, and lessons on Earth…one that I need to walk alone. And alone is enough. I am enough with the grace of the good Lord. 

So August 5 this year came like every year, and yet so different from the years before. It was also the Assumption of our Blessed Virgin Mary. Finally, I prayed the Holy Rosary days and months after Ryan’s death. Prior to that, I would recite and meditate on the Rosary regularly. This August 5, I went back to praying the Rosary, especially dedicated to Ryan, intending to make it part of my daily meditation routine again. I asked Mother Mary to go to Ryan and give him a big, tight hug and kiss from me, and to tell him how much I love and miss him. I’m sure she did that. Because even though I stopped asking for signs from him, I still received them on that day, and even last night.

Ryan’s been God-given and God-taken. So, there’s no loss, really. I’m learning to let go and still love Ryan hard despite the absence of his physical form, signs, and even when life gets difficult and gives me every reason not to love, have hope and faith. I’m learning to love hard in all the seasons of my life.