Yesterday, I lay in the grass in a cemetery. It’s a habit I’ve taken up since my boyfriend’s death. I let the clouds speak to me. Then, I rise.

My dead boyfriend tells me he has to go now. It’s time. It feels like he’s trying to break up with me. I say, “No, you said you’d stay with me.” I want to say forever, but he never said that, did he?

I can’t tell many people of our conversations—not because they’ll think I’m crazy (although it’s a consideration), but because they don’t believe. They look at me the way I look at my eight-year-old neighbor Parker when he says he has a black belt in karate. Or the way my stepbrother looks at me when I talk about God, condescending and a little self-righteous. He tells me he doesn’t believe in “the flying fairy.”

His response doesn’t diminish my faith so much as make me sorry he’s missing out. I feel no need to defend or explain that which can’t be proven, yet is as real to me as the sighting of a rainbow.

Like rainbows, stars and dragonflies, my dead lover, my friend, my twin flame Kevin comes to me. Truth is, I don’t give a damn if it’s fantasy. It’s mine. My connection and conversation with him continues. I’m in a world that feels like home, but it’s impossible, right?

Yes, impossible, like the love we had. Impossible, like all the words, experiences and sex we compacted into the two years lived like a decade. Impossible, like the fact that we knew each other for 25 years before either of us considered the thing that transformed us both. Impossible, like finding that kind of love in our fifties. Impossible, like he’s dead.

Kevin tells me he has to go. I beg him. “I still need you. Please don’t go! I’m not ready!” This is the third time we’ve had this conversation since his death, compared to the dozens of times he’s said, “I’m here, Icey. I’m here. It’s real. I’ve got you, Icey. I’m here.”

This—what feels like a break-up—was instigated by me the first time in June on the beach in Belize, the place I thought I’d go to drop off my grief. It was about as easy as abandoning a two-year old. Impossible. Kevin said, “I’m not leaving you, Icey.”

He called me Ice and I called him Fire. I keep melting, but he never goes out. He sends me signs, like the Capricorn Bar (he’s a Capricorn) on our morning walks at that yoga retreat. There are a thousand more I won’t say for fear you won’t believe anyway.

Yesterday in the cemetery, he told me he had to go. He’s not being cruel or saying he won’t come back, but he’s in a whole new world, too. He’s telling truth. I feel like a kid hearing, “Fido’s gone to heaven.” It’s a truth I’m not ready to hear, or am I?

No, I’m not. If Kevin was physically present, I’d cling to his ankles, seduce or guilt him into staying, though I never needed or wanted to resort to manipulation in our relationship on earth. He wouldn’t go for that kind of crap and I’m not that gal.

Still, in a cemetery I scream, “Don’t leave me!” I’m washed with peace. With love. His love. God’s love. And my mom’s—who’s also on the other side.

The second time Kevin and I had this conversation was a couple weeks ago. I was an emotional wreck. He said his presence wasn’t helping me, so he should go. Everything he does is about helping me. I told him it was. Then, I embraced his love all over again, like he convinced me to do in life.

Life—I have a full, beautiful, blessed one even with the loss. But, just because you know how fortunate you are doesn’t mean you feel it. Just because you stand on a beach in Belize and stare at turquoise water doesn’t make the noise of death subside.

However, I can see I’ve progressed. It’s weird to move forward in pain. It no longer chokes me, but God, how it hurts.

Kevin cannot wait for the pain to go away and in a sense, he never will. But now, I need to let him be in the world beyond.

I’m home now. It’s a day later. I decide…no, I’m overcome by a peace, a release. He says, “Yeah Icey, yeah, I got you. It’s ok. It’s going to be ok.”