Although me and Tye never really got along, I think it’s extremely heartbreaking to know that Ryan never really got to say his goodbyes. Closure is crucial and in this case, it’s very important that he gets to visit Tye’s grave so he can heal and peacefully move on with his life.
I know this all too well as over the last couple of months I had to abruptly separate myself from Matt and close down my first startup. There was no closure which hurt me. However, in my case, I couldn’t really have one because Matt wouldn’t have let me go that easily. And the scary part is that I still have feelings for him, as weird as that might be. I don’t think I’ve moved on from him. For me, it’s still an ongoing process that won’t ever reach the level of satisfaction that I’m hoping for. Getting someone out of your head is hard. One day you feel you can easily do it, then the next it comes up and haunts you over and over again until you’re physically and emotionally drained. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep. You can’t walk down the street without hoping to see this person you’re infatuated with although you know deep inside that you don’t really want to. It’s the anxiousness and the adrenaline rushing through your veins that insanely makes you excited, yet scared. It’s a full set of emotions. It’s both hoping and fearing for it to happen. I know for sure that I wouldn’t want to see Matt again. Just imagining myself walking out of my apartment and finding him leisurely standing outside my door gives me an uncomfortable feeling.
When Ryan told me how Tye’s mother, Stacy promised to stay in touch and let him know about the funeral then never reached out to him and threatened him to show up was so infuriating to me. Tye’s spiteful family literally said that they’d attack him and kick him out had he ever decided to show up to what ended up being a private ceremony because they were too embarrassed to have a funeral. Then he revealed to me something I never knew: When him and Tye first got together and Tye drove him to visit his parents during their first Thanksgiving together, little did Ryan know that he wasn’t fully out, and so when Tye revealed to his parents that he was gay and introduced Ryan as his boyfriend, he was physically attacked by his father. Nonetheless, the revelation was very liberating for both Ryan and Tye and their bond got even stronger afterwards. This is one stark example why some parents just shouldn’t have kids. What guarantees that your child is going to turn out exactly as you’d hope? There’s absolutely nothing that guarantees that. Yet, they are shocked and disappointed when their children grow up to be the total opposite of what they expected them to grow up to be, and have the audacity to get extremely angry and frustrated while trying so desperately to change something they know they can’t change. I know because it happened to me. As far as I know I’m the worst thing that’s happened to my parents. The way they treated me growing up all the way into my adulthood is proof enough of that.
Although I’ve never had to visit the grave of a significant other, I can kind of understand the huge amount of anxiety that comes with it. It confirms the death of the person. What I know however, is that it would give Ryan a sense of peace. It wasn’t hard to convince him to go, so within a couple of days, we managed to plan a trip to Dallas.
Felix Eberstark 