sum of its parts

He was so tired. After she was gone, he just kind of...deflated. He had made no secret of the fact that she was his reason for breathing, the one that kept him going. And once she was gone, he lost momentum. He loved the people in her life, loved them for what they meant to her, but he had lost the one person who had been with him, stuck with him, stayed by his side for years. So he was lonely, even while being surrounded by people who cared for and about him.

He tried to keep the loneliness under control by keeping busy; he kept busy by taking care of the people who cared about her, showing them that he loved them for how they loved her. Then, one day, the things keeping him busy were done. And the weight hit him in force, the pain he'd been living with every day and especially in the lonely hours of the night, the weight of how tired he was, how lonely he was, and how much he missed her...it never went away, even though he tried to act like it did, tried to pretend like he wasn't terminally ill, like he wasn't missing her and their life together. He didn't fool us, and eventually, he stopped trying to...and that's when our hearts broke, when we knew.

He's not lonely now. He doesn't hurt now.

But we do.