The One Who Breathed Through Me

About women who live inside you — even when they’re gone

Author’s Column by Tymur Levitin
Series: Light in the Dark. A Man’s Voice on Loss

Read the original version in Russian:
🔗 Та, что дышала мной – оригинальная статья

She didn’t stay. But she never really left.

Sometimes, someone disappears.
But their breath — remains.
You know she’s gone. Not near. Not in your life. Not in your future.
And yet — you still breathe her air.
You drink coffee — the way she did.
You pick words — like she would.
You look at the sky — through her eyes.

This isn’t love. It’s something deeper.
It’s breathing another person in.

We breathe those we let in

She wasn’t just someone you loved.
She became your thoughts.
You thought like her. Spoke like her.
You were afraid to say the wrong thing.
Afraid to breathe without her.

She became the air itself

You don’t remember her.
You breathe her.
She lives in your pauses.
In the pitch of your voice.
In the sound of your silence.

A piece like “The Room Without Her” has already been written:
🔗 The Room Without Her – author’s article

But this isn’t about a room.
It’s about inner breathing.

When a woman lives inside you

It’s not memory.
It’s not grief.
It’s your breath.
You no longer know what came from you — and what came from her.

You’re not holding her hand.
But you’re still holding her — inside.

Can you get over it?

No.
It doesn’t go away.
You learn to live with that breath.
It becomes yours.
It becomes you.
But deep down — you always know:
You didn’t invent that tone.

It was her.
The one who breathed through you.

We speak of it

Because if we don’t — we won’t survive.
Because silence suffocates.

That’s why we write.
That’s why we sing.

Also read:

🔗 The Witch Who Didn’t Fly
🔗 The Room Without Her

📘 My teacher profile:
https://levitinlanguageschool.com/teachers/tymur-levitin/

Next in the series:
“When You Were Her Home”
About men who became her safety — and still lost her.