A crashing halt for the world, a catatonic pause for me.

When I heard the news, it felt like the world came to a crashing halt. Only for a second, though. It started going again, and the world was going faster than ever. I didn't start again. I was still paused. I'd only heard the news, I hadn't absorbed it. I can remember my mother shaking me, hoping to shake the shock out of me. For over an hour I stood, feeling neither tiredness nor pain in my muscles from the inactivity. All that time only one though went through my mind. None other than these few words, “It's over, she's gone.”

At the time, I thought nothing else would ever matter again. Nobody else. After losing... him, she was all I had worth living for. When I lost him, I lost a piece of my heart; he was romantic love. When I lost her, I lost a piece of my soul; she was love deeper than romantic love, deeper than any other love. She was a part of me. I'd spend a third of my life with her, I only got five years with him. I got ten with her. The second year with her was... painful.

He died just a year after her birth. He was only twenty-two. Some drunk driver idiot crashed into his car. Nobody got to him in time. A few years later, I came to realize that I truly love him: I still missed him each and every single day. I didn't cry every night like I did the first few months, but I still missed his presence.

I get far too close and attached to people, which is why death was hard on me. Especially the death of someone as close to me as him. Now, her death... Her death brought me a lot closer to a total breakdown. I did eventually have a breakdown, a few weeks after my one hour catatonic state.