Real or remembering?

.Photo from here...

I was walking the dog in the sunshine earlier today. I was listening to a fabulous song that makes me think of that bitter-sweet sensation.

The feeling where you could swear "they" are with you. That you can almost feel their breath on your neck or hear their familiar sounds in the dark? The feeling that they are thinking about you or have just whispered that they love you in your ear?

Is it real? Is Jeff really non-physically "with" me? Can he see me? Is he expressing his love for me through some sort of cosmic vibrational love? Or is it just a chemical memory of a hormone cocktail that was once specific to our relationship? Merely a jolt of misfired oxytocin?

I want to believe it is his essence/spirit/soul slipping into the spot beside me and holding my hand or stroking my face with whatever energy would have once controlled his large calloused hands. I want to hope that he can feel and hear my thoughts. That he can know the loss that is still felt without his body next to mine.

But the pessimistic, rational scientist that lives within my brain scoffs. I begin to wonder if it is a similar phenomenon to deja-vu - scientists claim that this occurrance is merely a misfiring of the brain's chemistry creating the illusion that you have already experienced this exact moment.

In my heart, though, I can feel him. I have known the love of others. Though not a deep or profound, I have loved other men. And what I feel when I sense him near is not the residual effects of generic love. It is a feeling specific to him...and me.

Maybe I am crazy or naive. Maybe I am just allowing myself a fairytale to alleviate some of the feelings of loss and to provide hope that I will be with him again. But I really do feel like he is with me. Not all the time. But when I do, I sense him so breath-takingly close that I freeze and hope that this moment lasts just a little longer. That for just this second, it is just he and I.