I stared at the blank piece of yellow legal paper in front of me. In the back of my mind, I noted the color seemed to clash with the polished mahogany table; the one she had wanted so much and cared for; the one I yelled at her for getting because it'd been too expensive.

Now it stood as a mere reminder of things that once were.

My eyes traveled over the crumpled tissues, the empty Kleenex boxes and the array of dead (or dying) flowers. The gifts that I had been given in "my time of need" lay around the house in a mess that had yet to be cleaned. I had not shaved in two days, I barely got dressed in the morning; all that seemed to have faded along with her life force.

And yet I was still sitting at that very table, staring away at the putrid yellow of the legal pad paper, ballpoint pen in hand, trying to think of something to write. After all, as they all had pointed out: I knew her best. It was all settled: they would take care of the arrangements and I would write and speak the eulogy.

Telling me this as if I had gotten the better end of a deal.

I didn't have anything to say. How can you condense the life you had with someone for fifteen years into a single three-to-five minute speech in front of family and friends? Not even to mention, since her death, I had seemed to suffer only from fragments of thoughts. Nothing was whole; nothing made sense; nothing was finished. Everything was a mess because she was gone.

She would never, ever come back.

More tears flooded from my already bloodshot eyes when that thought hit me again with the fullest impact. She had been dead a little over a week but I still could not think she was gone and not want to rip my own heart out. I still wanted to scream at anyone who came by; with all their concerned, comforting glances and gestures. I wanted to yell at them all. No, you DON'T know what it's like! She and I were the closest friends and lovers for FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS. What right do you have to tell me she's "in a better place"? You think that makes any fucking difference now!? She's gone! I can't hold her anymore! I can't touch her! I can't kiss her! IT'S ALL OVER AND YOUR SWEET, CAUTIOUS WORDS DON'T MEAN A FUCKIN' THING!

Of course, in the recesses of my mind, I knew they were trying to help; but that was always the problem with trying: it never goes beyond that. You can try and understand; you can try and be comforting; you can try and be there for the person who has lost the love of their life. But your understanding will never come to you until the same thing happens; comforting would be having the love of your life back in your arms; not some seventy-year-old aunt you haven't seen or heard from in 20-plus years trying to tell you "oh, she's in heaven". And, at the end of the day, no one was there to sleep beside you in bed; their pseudo-kindness lasted only as long as they were in your presence.

I lifted the pen above the paper and stared again down at my empty assignment. The funeral was in two days; I needed to have something prepared by then. Of course, everyone said they would not think less of me if there was nothing to say about her from the man who had shared his home and life for a decade and a half. But as reassuring as they were trying to be, they did not seem too sure of their feelings. If I did not, in fact, prepare anything, there would be a buzz throughout the funeral home and among friends and family.

How could they expect me to write and speak the eulogy? I didn’t have anything prepared; I didn't know what to say. What would be appropriate? The only thing I wanted to do was start shouting at the casket, the friends, the family; all who had come to give support and cry out that I wanted to be with her again. I didn't want her dead. I wanted to take back a week of fighting with her and then have her little six year old VW Beetle come in contact with an pick-up truck going a lot faster than it should have been going in the onset of a huge rainstorm.

I stared down at the paper. Was anything going to get written in two days? I decided taking a coffee break would do me some good. Sliding from my seat, I walked over to the thoroughly used coffee machine and poured myself another cup.

Two days later was the funeral. The service went by in a blur. I met with a lot of the friends I hadn't seen in years; the family who had been trying to be supportive the entire past week; the less-than-enthused guests and a lot of people I did not know, but who I heard knew my wife from her dance classes, or something of the kind.

When it was time for the eulogy, I stepped up, shaky handed, to the podium. Fixing my suit, fumbling with my fingers and the nervous sweat that had seemed to form along my brow line and trace my palms, I cleared my throat loudly and whisked a small smile. There were a great number of the guests who smiled back; some out of discomfort, some out of sympathy and some out of embarrassment to me. I lowered my gaze and focused on the wooden podium.

It was a glossy mahogany.

Just like our twelve hundred dollar table set she just had to have.

My heart sunk into the lower region of my stomach at the same time a lump formed in my throat.

My feet fidgeted as I struggled to tear my eyes away from the similarities in wood.

I stared up at everyone who had came to the funeral.

My mind was blank.

Completely and undeniably blank.

I cleared my throat again. I heard a few coughs ignite throughout the room; a few people shifted in their chairs uncomfortably; they were all waiting.

I knew I had not prepared anything for that day. In over a week, I had nothing to say.

Clearing my throat once more, I shifted my eyes to my feet before fixing everyone there with my steady, uninterrupted gaze. I seemed to catch everyone's attention with that simple gesture.

"Danielle," I started, raising my right hand to my neck for a moment to straighten my tie. "Danielle," I repeated. "was a magnificent woman. Painter. Actor. Teacher. Dancer. She had a light that blossomed from within and infected everyone around her. Everyone loved her. But, I have to say, I loved her the most." A small smile came to my face as my mind reached into the land of nostalgia.

But then I was hit with what I truly wanted to say about the woman I had loved for so long. The smile faded from my lips; the sparkle extinguished from my eyes. Sighing heavily, I could feel the tension in the room build as each and every person waited for me to continue. "But," I started. Everyone seemed to freeze. "I don't know if I ever knew the real Danielle."

They all stared at me as if I had gone mad.

"I spent fifteen years with that woman; the woman who everyone has a piece of; everyone can bring together a different part of her and if we combined all that, maybe we would know the real Danielle. But, unfortunately, I was never able to meet her."

Staring over at the blown up poster-board picture of her that was standing on the far end of the casket, I sighed softly. Heartbroken, I whispered: "I only wish she would have let me in enough to share with me everything."

With dead silence following me, I fixed my suit and stepped off the stage.