Hello my friend.

It's been six years today and you are still missed.

The presence of your memory in my life has changed.  Gone is the sense that you are watching me, living my life from somewhere far away.  Gone is the sense that you are stuck, frozen in time along a path we walked together until you died and my steps veered off in another direction.

In the place of all the things I have felt about you, about our friendship, about your death, is this sense of absolute and unending love.  Yours is the love I pull about myself in the darkness.  Yours is the love that soothes me when no one else can reach me.  Yours is the love that is always here.

How is it you can be here, always and forever, when you left for good so many years ago? How can I feel your support, your generosity, your unfailing love from so many years away?

So much has happened since you left. So much has changed. The day you died marked a change in my view of the world. It is the day I stopped believing that the good things we do are rewarded in some cosmic way, that good people are handled carefully by the universe.  It is, for all intents and purposes, the day I stopped believing in God.

Don't feel badly for me, what I have left of my life is far more precious for it's randomness.  The good things I choose to do are done only for my knowing they are good, not to balance the scales against the wrongs I have committed.  You have inspired me in death, as you did in life, to live more fully, more passionately.

It is snowing here today, a hard and heavy snow raining down it's blanketing quiet on the streets below my window.  The kids want to play in it.  They are so big now. You would love to see how Monkey has grown.  You would love the woman she is becoming. Otter is as cute and tenacious as ever.  They are both wicked smart.

I love you my friend. I hope you know.

So many things happening.

The third anniversary of your death passed recently and we gathered to celebrate you and what we have built together. We all agreed that somehow you had been instrumental in this endeavor we are engaged in. We realized that your death made it possible for us to unite and build our own practice a lot earlier that we would have otherwise done.

It was comforting to think you still have your hand in things after all this time.

Love you.

Hey you.

It's been a really long time since I have written you. I still think about you a lot but I guess I have been moving on.

It strikes hard tonight that you haven't.

There is so much you are missing but what really saddens me is how much I miss sharing it with you.

I finally got angry with you. It took fucking forever to do it but I finally got mad at the choices you made. The choices that led me here, to a blog, writing to the memory of you. I want to smack the shit out of you when I think about it but the anger dies pretty quickly, how can you smack the shit out of the dead?

What makes me the most angry is that your death changed the way I see the world. I simply don't fit back into the person I was before you died. I have always held a childish and egocentric belief that the bad things only happened far outside my personal sphere of influence. Your death made me grow up right quick.

I am now a much more cynical person.

If you happen to be conscious at all, in any way, know that I still love you.

Unexpected connection

I found your Flickr page tonight, you had put up our Catalina Island trip photos, and the pictures from Halloween.

It's nice to see you after so very long.

I love you.

Dropping a line...

Today I drove past the sign in Golden that made us laugh so much.

"Correctional facility nearby: Do not pick up hitchhikers."

I wish you were here to giggle with me.

It's not easy

to think about you being gone.
I still miss you so much.
It's weird, because I have so many dear friends I knew longer, but you and I were so tight.

I miss writing silly phrases on your wall, and having you respond. I am sad that I am know the only one that saw the shoe, all shined up and ready for a walk, sitting outside the campus. I miss your presence in my days, and you voice on the phone, and your advice, input, excitement and sheer willingness to believe in me.

I miss you. I miss watching law and order with you, and playing the drinking game we made up. I miss analyzing every little bit of legalese we came across. No one else cares if the sign on the side of the road was clearly made by a lawyer, it was all you and me.

I didn't intend to find such a dear friend when I went to law school, but you appeared.

And now, just as unexpectedly, you are gone.

Everyone seems to think I should be over that fact. Everyone tells me I should move on. The problem is, I have. It's you who haven't, who can't, move on. I am here, over a year later, with a one year old son, a burgeoning career, a soon to be seven year old daughter, a stable marriage, a possible third kid in the future. You are still a year out of law school, waiting for me to give birth, looking for your chance to save the world.

It's not me who can't move on.

A year tomorrow...

It will have been a year tomorrow.

I still miss you so much.

There is a major windstorm outside, railing against the house. It makes the doors creak and the walls groan. It makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, you are here, just beyond my senses, just outside my life.

It makes me feel better.

I love you.