The following texts are part of a series of letters I wrote while I was grieving my first true love, Numan, who passed away from cancer in 2017. You can find the previous ones here.

15.09.2017

Hello, Numan.

It’s been a while, again. Sorry I’ve stopped writing to you; I guess there’s still a lot I need to process and I’m still not quite ready to face everything. I needed to live in the present, for a bit. They say it’s not good to live in the past. Don’t get me wrong; I still think about you, everyday. I’m learning to let go of the guilt, and it’s a process. It helps to know you would want me to be happy.

I have amazing news for you. You probably already know, and it’s making you dance and jump up and down… metaphorically. You’re going to get to keep inspiring people, from where you are. Someone wants to make a movie about you one day, habibi. About us, our story. About my trip to Palestine and how you made me discover a whole new world. How crazy is that? It’s only an idea for now and I don’t know if it will ever actually happen, but I like imagining that you might continue to live on screen. I am so happy. I am happy for me, of course, but even more for you. You would have loved the idea. I wish I could tell it to you face to face, or on the phone at least.

Although I guess if you were here, they wouldn’t want to make a movie about this story, right? How ironic. I’m not going to be sad about it, though, because I’ve been sad enough and this is happy news. It’s light in the darkness of your death.

You’ll always be alive, for me.

Bye habibi ❤️

18.09.2017

Hello Numan,

I realised after writing to you the other day for the first time in two months that I’ve actually missed it a lot. I miss you, and I forgot how talking to you this way makes me feel close to you again.

It’s been a year that we were in Jordan together. Can you imagine? I don’t know where time goes. I still feel guilty, you know. More than before, actually. I feel like I’ve let you down. I can’t help but feeling that things could have happened differently, if I had taken better decisions. I know, it’s a bit narcissistic and I know, I repeat myself a lot. I’m sorry about that.

I miss you. I’m trying really hard to get better and move on and focus on the good, but the horror and the tragedy of your death still linger around me. That movie, it’s good news because it’s going to help me get closure. But I don’t want closure. I want you to be dancing and laughing. I dreamed about your parents, last night. I wish I could dream about you, too. A world where you would still be alive. Gosh, I need to move on. You wouldn’t want that for me, I know.

I’ll keep trying as hard as I can. For you.

Bye hobi

Sophie

26.02.2018

Hello there,

I’m not sure what it is that pushes me to write to you after all this time, nor do I know why I haven’t felt the need to before. Maybe it was me realising slowly that writing to a dead person won’t make that person come back. It’s been almost a year. A year, can you imagine? You know what can happen in an entire year?

You have time to be at the top of the world and dive to the deepest black hole, you have time to fall in love, twice, to travel to seven countries, to meet hundreds of people, to gain so much only to lose everything, heck, a lifetime can happen in a year.

I’m sad, again. I don’t know if it’s because we’re approaching the first anniversary of your death, or if it’s all the rest. I had been feeling good, for quite a long time. It was nice. It felt like I could breathe again. Get out of bed in the morning. But I’m sad again. I’m burned out, and overwhelmed, and wondering how I’ve got to this point again.

I miss you. I wish you could be there, still. Just to talk from time to time, you know. I miss you, and it still hurts so much at times. Maybe even more, because it’s like now I’m finally ready to feel the true pain of your loss. A fucking painful pain that is keeping me from finishing this letter.

Calling Me – Charlie Winston
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