This happens every time I’ve come home since Ed passed away: I walk in, anticipating him to either be sitting at his desk, hoping someone will swivel his chair around and that this someone would be him. He’ll run up to me to give me a hug, and then help me bring in my luggage. If he’s not there, which he obviously has not been since July 2013, then my body is expecting him to be there when I open my bedroom door.

I say my body expects him to be there because my brain clearly knows he is not. It’s like the tiniest hope that runs through my veins that I will see him and be able to touch him again. He is gone from this earth, but my body expects his energy and self to be somewhere in that house, and maybe if I am lucky, I can sense and feel exactly where he is and physically feel him again. I expect him to be sitting and reading on his bed, or lying down and taking a nap. I walked into the house yesterday night, and he wasn’t at his desk. I walked further into the house and opened my bedroom door dramatically, and there was nothing. No trace of him — just his energy permeating the entire space.

I walked up to his old dresser, where that large framed photo of him from his funeral sits next to a koala, an orchid plant, and the funeral program. I ran my fingers over the top of the dresser and noticed it had recently been dusted clean.

“Hi, Ed,” I said quietly to his photo. “I’m home, but you don’t seem to be.”

The first hour or so back home is always the worst for me. I’m never going to get over this. I can try, but I know I will fail. In this one case in my life, failure is inevitable.

When we came back from Australia and Hong Kong at the beginning of January, I thought that hopefully by the time we left for Los Angeles for wedding planning errands that my bruised ribs and lingering cough and other cold-related symptoms would be gone, but I wasn’t so lucky. Three weeks into January, and I haven’t been able to do a proper gym workout even once, still have bruised ribs, phlegm and a cough. My voice still breaks when I speak, and I still sound like I am getting choked up when I speak. My goal is to sound and feel better before I see my parents on Monday night… because sure, I can really control these things.

I’m hoping that the Southern California air, despite how polluted it is, will help with my breathing. It will be warmer than New York, which has a scheduled snow storm that will hit shortly after we leave. I’m so happy to leave the snow storm that is New York, even if I am heading into what will be a wedding planning storm.

My birthday didn’t end so well yesterday, as coughing spells began again, and the night ended with a big headache and feelings that were very similar to when my pertussis was in full force. I was hoping to get better, not to get worse. I’ve never been sick this long in my life. “30 and thriving!” my friend wrote to me yesterday. Yes, I’d be thirty and thriving if I weren’t trying so hard to recover from this stupid whooping cough.

Maybe Ed sensed how miserable I was physically feeling because he came to visit last night after a long time of no visits. In my dream, I was at home, and I noticed he was coughing and blowing his nose a lot. He sounded congested. I told him he didn’t look or sound so well, and he agreed and said he felt terrible. I opened the medicine cabinet in our bathroom at home and started taking out the Vicks inhaler, some pills, and a thermometer, and proceeded to boil some water and prepare honey and lemon for him. He sat down, like a little obedient boy, and watched me as I prepared things to make him better. I put my hand on his forehead to check his temperature, and he seemed fine. He had no fever. I gazed at my sick brother and wondered how long we’d be together for until he’d leave me.

And then as always, I woke up. Stupid whooping cough, and damn it, Ed. Always leaving.