Today, I visited our favorite coffee shop, the one we used to go to when we were together, and I found myself wishing I could tell you I had been there. For a moment, it felt like something I could still send you a message about, something as simple as, “Guess where I went today?” Then I remembered that there wouldn’t be an answer, and what might have been an ordinary visit for coffee became a reminder of everything I can no longer say to you.
I knew I was going somewhere that held memories of us, but I didn’t know how it would feel to be there now that you’re gone.
We ended our relationship four years ago, and I know the life we shared belongs to a different chapter. So much has happened since then, and we both had lives beyond the time we spent together, but being back there made those four years feel strangely small. I could remember going there with you without having to reach very far into the past, and it hurt to realize how close a memory can feel when the person in it is permanently out of reach.
I could remember being there with you so easily, but I couldn’t do the one thing I wanted to do: tell you about it.
When we were together, it was just our coffee shop, a familiar place we enjoyed visiting without thinking too much about what it might mean someday. We weren’t trying to create a memory that would need to last the rest of my life, and I wasn’t paying attention to every detail so I could write about it after losing you. We were simply spending time together, probably thinking about whatever came next that day, unaware that the ordinary things would eventually become the things I wished I could experience once more.
I wish I had understood how much there was to appreciate in those visits, although I know we can’t live every moment preparing to miss it. Still, there is something painful about looking back and realizing that a day I might barely have thought about afterward is a day I would now love to have again. I wouldn’t need anything remarkable to happen; I would just want to hear you talk, watch you smile, and have a little more time to listen.
I would have paid more attention to the sound of your laugh if I had known I would someday have to remember it without hearing it again.
Being there brought your smile to mind, and then the jokes you used to make and the way you could get me laughing. I thought about how much you loved listening to the music the shop was playing, the concerts we talked about possibly attending. Back then, we could spend so much time talking and still find something else to say, and today I found myself thinking about all those hours with a tenderness I wasn’t quite prepared for.
One familiar place led me back to so many memories, including some I hadn’t thought about in a long time. I couldn’t recall every conversation we had at that coffee shop, and I won’t pretend that I could, but I remembered enjoying your company there. I remembered that it had been somewhere we went together, and today that simple fact meant more to me than I could have explained to anyone passing through.
For everyone else, it could be a stop in the middle of their day. For me, it held a part of my life I could remember but never step back into.
There was comfort in returning, although it came with a sadness I couldn’t set aside. Since finding out about your passing through social media, I have been trying to understand how someone I once knew so personally could become someone whose death I learned about through other people’s posts. I keep coming back to that feeling of reading something I desperately wanted to have misunderstood, knowing that no amount of rereading would change what had happened.
Today, being at the coffee shop gave those feelings somewhere to settle for a little while. I was in a place connected to my own memories of you, somewhere that reminded me of the person I knew before there was news to process or a goodbye to write. I could remember you as someone who laughed, loved his music, made jokes, and once spent long nights talking to me because we wanted to keep each other company.
I needed that today: a memory of spending time with you that I could hold alongside the pain of knowing you’re gone.
I’m still learning how to let myself feel this without questioning whether I have the right to feel it so deeply. Our relationship ended years ago, and I have a life now that I care about, with people I love and a future I am building. Yet knowing all of that hasn’t made your passing easy to accept, because moving forward with my life never meant forgetting that you had been part of it.
I don’t have to make our relationship perfect in my memories to be heartbroken that you’re gone. We had our own story, with reasons it began and reasons it ended, and I can be honest about those things while still being grateful for the happiness we shared. There were moments worth remembering, and losing you has made me realize how much I had quietly assumed there would always be someone else in the world who remembered those moments with me.
Now there are things about our time together that I can remember, but can never ask you about again.
That is one of the parts I’m finding hardest to explain. I wish I could tell you I visited our coffee shop and hear what you remembered about it. Maybe you would bring up something I had completely forgotten, or remind me of something funny we said, and for a few minutes we could share a memory without needing to make it mean anything more than that. I wish there could still be a conversation where we acknowledged that, whatever happened afterward, we had some good days together.
What I wanted most today was for you to know that I remembered. Four years hadn’t erased your smile, the coffee shop, the concerts, or the feeling of going somewhere familiar with you. Those memories had become part of my past, but they hadn’t stopped mattering, and I wish there had been a reason to tell you that while you were still here to hear it.
There are so many things we assume people know until we lose the chance to say them out loud.
I know a visit to a coffee shop can’t give me the goodbye I wish I’d had, and I don’t expect it to make this loss easier all at once. But I’m glad I went, even though it hurt, because I was able to spend a little time remembering you without trying to hurry myself through it. I didn’t have to decide whether my sadness made sense to anyone else before allowing myself to feel it.
Today, I went back to our favorite coffee shop, and I let myself miss you there. I thought about the people we were when we used to go together, how much has changed since then, and how impossible it would have been to imagine this visit back when you were beside me. I felt grateful that those days happened, and sad that there will never be a chance to ask if you remembered them the way I do.
If I could tell you about today, I would tell you that being there made me smile, too, even through the sadness.
I would tell you that I remembered your laugh and wished I could hear it again. I would tell you that some of the memories we probably thought nothing of have stayed with me all these years, and that I’m glad I got to know the version of you who shared them with me.
And before the conversation ended, I would make sure I said what I didn’t get to say: thank you for those days, for the laughter I still remember, and for the good you brought into that part of my life.
I wish I could have told you over coffee.
Have you ever returned to a place that holds memories of someone you’ve lost? If you feel comfortable sharing, tell me about that place and the person it helps you remember in the comments I’d love to know which ordinary moments have become precious to you.
Until next time,
Between the Words
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