On June 13th 2013 I met Bryan. We met on accident through my best friend (his cousin) in a Boston sports bar in the West Village and were instantly infatuated with one another. Bryan lived in Boston and I lived in New York, but that couldn’t stop us. We dove head first into a long distance relationship. For the next two years we didn’t go a day without speaking. Bryan is the most intelligent, caring, entertaining, talented, and interesting person I have ever met. We made nicknames for each other, watched movies, went to baseball games, traveled, danced to silly songs, made up words, watched plays, created traditions, talked about our future, and fell madly-deeply-head-over-heels in love. We became each other’s best friend, #1 fan, and family.
Bryan had Ewing’s Sarcoma. What’s Ewing’s Sarcoma? Well…it is a fucking horrible cancer. It is a bone cancer that Bryan was first diagnosed with in 2002. Over the next 13 years Bryan had multiple recurrences. The first recurrence it had metastasized to his lungs. When I met Bryan he had been in remission for about a year. By December of this past year he had another recurrence. We knew this would not be an easy journey, but he beat it every time, so we knew that we would get through this. I **knew** without a shadow of a doubt that Bryan would get better. No matter what happened at doctor’s appointments I knew whole-heartedly that he would be okay. I knew that we would come out of this stronger together, and then do whatever our version of happily ever after looked like. So, we lived our lives; we took care of each other and supported each other unconditionally. We went on more adventures, we watched more movies, went to more baseball games, binge watched so many shows, danced more ridiculous dances, made up more words, and loved each other so much it hurt. Full disclosure: there were often times where we argued fiercely, said vicious hurtful things, and straight up fought. We also said “I love you” and “I’m thankful for you” every single day. It was a pretty well rounded situation.
Begin montage of never ending train and bus rides from NY to MA, doctors appointments, hospitals, and treatments. Maybe one day I’ll write about what exactly happened, but today is not that day. The overview: Bryan wasn’t doing great but was fine, then he wasn’t. I got the worst call of my entire life at 11:47pm on August 10th and arrived in Boston at 5am August 11th. I spent a week in the hospital with him and watched my miracle boy fade away.
On August 16th, 2015 at about 12:30pm I lost my best friend and love to cancer.
Over a month later and it still doesn’t feel real.
The reality is that I’m struggling. I am sad. I miss my buddy. I am all of the bad things. I feel lost. What I’d love to do is curl in to a ball and cry for the next 100 years, but I’m not going to do that. Bryan would be pissed if I did that. So my commitment to myself, and I guess now to you is this: live life like Bryan would.
So this is me: crying in public places, trying new things, and attempting to figure out what life looks like now.
<3
