Before You Come To My Funeral

Before You Come To My Funeral

for anyone who walked away from someone who loved them

I lost you first.
Not when my memories faded,
not when the doctors said it was time—
I lost you
the day you walked away from me
while I still remembered every piece of you.

I didn’t lose you to war,
or disaster,
or some accident
no one could stop.

You walked away
the day I stopped looking like
the version of me
you decided was worthy of love.

You tell yourself
what helps you sleep at night.
That I became difficult,
confusing,
too much work.

But inside this broken brain,
this tired body,
I am still me—
the one who loved you deep,
who smiled every time
I thought of you,
who replayed our life together
like a movie
on the nights I couldn’t sleep.

I remember our shared jokes,
the late-night calls,
the small crises and big news,
the way you used to reach for me
when the world felt too loud.

You walked away from that,
and told yourself
you were walking away
from someone else.

You walked away
while I sat staring at my phone,
aching when you declined my call
without listening,
watching your name sit there
on “delivered”
and never turn into
“I’m on my way”
or
“How are you?”

I wished for the smallest things:

one dinner,
one holiday where you chose
my table over someone else’s,
one afternoon where you said,
“I’ll come by—even if it’s just for an hour.”

Instead, I watched you fill your life
with anything and anyone
who wasn’t me.

You walked away
when I could no longer offer
what you wanted from me—
money,
favors on demand,
the strong, steady version of me
who never needed anything back.

You walked away
when all I ever needed
was a smile in my doorway,
a chair pulled up at my bedside,
your voice cutting through the fog
to say,
“I’m here.”

By the time I die,
you won’t be losing me.
You’ll be visiting the shell
of someone you left
long before the machines
and the paperwork.

So if you stand over my casket
on my fateful day,
don’t let guilt dress itself
as a love story.

Don’t whisper,
“I wish I had called,”
when you silenced my name
a hundred times.

Don’t say,
“I wish we had one more holiday or family meal,”
when you scrolled past my messages
while I sat at the table
remembering the place
you never filled.

Don’t post about missing me
if the last time you reached out
was when you needed my card number
and not my company.

If you cry,
let it be for the years
you spent choosing
everywhere else
over here.

Let it be for the dinners unattended,
the unread texts,
the visits you decided
were not important,
too boring,
too far out of your way.

And if any part of me
still echoes in you,
hear this:

I was still here.

Behind the tremors,
behind the confusion,
behind the broken memory,
I was still the one
who loved you without a receipt,
who would have taken
even a shallow,
awkward,
superficial version of us
just to see your face
and hear your voice
one more ordinary day.

I leave this world
holding two truths tight:

You chose the distance.
I never stopped waiting
for you to walk back
through the door.

Heather Robbins - Robbins Nest Alliance