lthough it ended with her, I look back on my time with Hollie with great fondness. The memories of her smile as I opened doors for her, the sparkle in her eyes as I made her laugh, her bony body in my arms are all gifts that I cling to even years later.
I knew from the moment I met her that I would never be enough for her. I had been at the right place at the right time, when she’d just moved to a new place, a new job and a new life. It stood to reason she needed a new man as well, and I’d been there when she’d gone out with her new colleagues.
I’d never believed that a woman could be luminous before. Hollie was. There was a light that shone from her eyes each time she spoke, and she left glowing trails across my skin when she touched me. She was kind, but not especially so. She was happy, but not excessively. She was generous, but no more than most of my friends. She was even quite ruthless, determined and single-minded when it came to some things. Some people might have described her as hard. But there was something, an energy that she exuded, that captured me.
Since she left my world has been greyer, flatter. Don’t get me wrong, my world is not particularly grey or flat. But somehow she made things more three-dimensional.
I often think how much Hollie would like my favourite coffee place, how she would approve fiercely of the décor, the menu, the staff. The place is somehow better to me simply because she would have liked it.
I find myself gravitating towards the colours that she favoured on me, not just because I agree with her, but because knowing her somehow shifted my internal spectrum.
Six years later, I find myself still wedded to the memory of my time with her. Other women have come and gone, but none of them with a light bright enough to banish the shadow her absence cast over me.
Don’t feel sorry for me. I miss her, but I’m not sad. My existence is better from having had those six months with her. I have the memories of the places we went and the things that we saw. Looking through my eyes as they were then comforts me. I feel like I could still quote verbatim whole chunks of conversations we had. I can relive the touch of her skin because I have replayed it in my mind so many times.
Don’t feel sorry for me. Though I miss her, my life is richer than if I’d never known her.
About Cherish
When I think of the word ‘cherish’, I immediately think about loving someone or something so much that you must protect it at all costs. What if that person is no longer around, though? When I was writing this I had in my mind the lasting effect that love can have on a person. A lost love can go on enriching someone’s life – that effect doesn’t necessarily end with the relationship. This piece is about cherishing the memory of someone, and realising that by knowing them, they have changed your view of the world.
