It’s hard for me to wrap my heard around being gone. The essence of it all, whether its enormously enthralling or the slightest of smalls. “I’m sorry for your loss.” It comes in waves, the understanding of the word, “loss.” But where do they go? What does it mean when i see the picture, stare at it for hours trying to remember what it was like when they were right here in front of me always knowing that they never will be again?

Is there a reference code of reminding my inner child to never give up the moments that were so pure and full of light. The simmering of supper around dinner time and the way the room smelled of love and fullness. How your voice was a sort of jolly like substance that enamored my ears into a clear understanding that no matter what, everything was really alright. Because how could it ever be anything else?

I look outside to just close my eyes and try to recall how it all happened. How your life crossed within my own and now mine continues onward as yours fades away into the stardust. Until the ether where then you disperse yourself into the sky, the universe. Or maybe the hummingbird that zooms around my flowers now is a part of you. The essence of you to ensure that despite my aching heart and the heaviness that comes when I remember you saying my name, that you come by every so often to make sure I’m some sort of okay.

I imagine you laughing wherever you are. Laughing with a joy contained only by the sun and small children when they giggle and play knowing there’s nothing they fear. Because life hasn’t really gotten to them yet. The monsters under their beds are still just imaginary blobs of mass that within the years to come will finally take on the faces of the humans around them. Sometimes the ones closest to them.

I can hear your laugh and the way you would eat so slow. Food hanging on to your chin as if it was the last chance of survival. You would stare off into the kitchen table as it reflected the fluorescence of the light above and nod into the conversation to the parts you liked, and then make a humming noise for the parts you liked even more. I find myself nodding from time to time, just to feel what you felt all those years, and to maybe hold on to one last piece of you before they all flutter away.

But could it be so selfish to please ask of you to stay a little longer? Small hints of you here and there to just remind me that you never really left? That you’re just off somewhere and we will see each other soon. And it’s just a bit more time before I open the door and you slowly walk in with a smile going on mid conversation of things i know nothing about and ultimately never will.

And that alone is the comfort.