It’s been over two weeks, and I still haven’t fully accepted that Ed isn’t with us anymore. When it was confirmed that he had passed, I fantasized in my head that the person who jumped off the bridge wasn’t him, that he had paid some other depressed person’s family an insane amount of money to pose as him, with his house keys, driver’s license, and all, and jump off. That sounds pretty selfish since at the end of it, it would still mean that someone had to die, but I fantasized about it anyway. Then, when the day came for his service, I’d see the body in the casket and realize immediately it was definitely not my Ed, and that my Ed had in fact tried to fake his own death so that he could start a new life in a new place and finally attain the peace and happiness he’d always sought. And then one day, he’d reach out to me and we’d be together again. It’s a sick fantasy, but it was a real one I tried to hold onto as long as I could.