Continued

In order to continue on, I have to start where I last left off.....

I have to admit that it feels a bit awkward to cycle back through the last year of my life.  However, I can't really speak of where I am without speaking of where I've been.

Seth.

We lost you to melanoma this year and the yearning for you has not diminished in the very least. Just last week I watched my sister shed a tear for you as she watched an old couple hug and sway to the sound of a beautiful song. She either imagined it to be you and her, or she thought of how that would never be you and her in this life. Perhaps she thought of both. I love and miss you and were you here in front of us, we'd never stop holding you.

Your passing has brought us together in unimaginable ways. I spend so many hours with your six children and my sister. I've given up my life as I knew it. My weekends are no longer about clubs and friends. Instead I spend them acting like a child with your children, lending a shoulder to your wife. I haul the kids around when Karen is at work, taking them to school, taking them shopping, having sleep overs, cracking jokes.... anything to see them smile. According to James, I make the house "fun"... If I'm away for too long I get the phone call asking me to come over. I love every second I spend with them. We talk about you all of the time. Some days, I still can't believe you're gone.....

Drew.

I love you. That pretty much sums it all up. I no longer try to make sense of what happened to us. I simply enjoy that we were once an "us" and the rest I attribute to life and its many changing seasons. Nobody in this world will ever know the fullness of what we once were. You were under my skin, in my every pore, in every breath. We were amazing .... in love and in anger. Remember, like Mayans and Cherokee's. I loved kissing your forehead and melting the anger away, holding you close, returning to the place where people envied what we were. We were nothing less than intense in everything that we did together.... to the point of exhaustion and our eventual demise.

I don't have the words to express the beauty that your love created in me. You may never know how your memory influences me to this very day. I learned the best lessons while loving you, felt the worse pain but found my true strengths. I miss you ... but now I do it with a smile. I still pray for you, still wish nothing but the best for you... always.

I wrote this some time ago.... for you.....

I'm forgetting the way you sound, the way you move.
I'm forgetting the feel of your hands, the scent of your skin.
I'm forgetting the way your mouth moves when you talk, the way you blink, the way you walk.

I've lost you too many hurtful times. I feel this will be the last. When the remaining idiosyncratic bits of you fade away.... you'll only be a face, a statue, a photograph. I once memorized every mole on your face, every scar on your body, the swirls of the hairs on the nape of your neck. Now I can't remember if the scar we named is on your left or right hand, I no longer feel you... I've forgotten what it feels like to hold you.

I'm recalling less and less the things that reminded me of you. My house has slowly forgotten you, your things left behind have slowly found their way into boxes tucked away to collect dust. I guess it's like loosing you yet again, this time for good.

"The depth of life will dim my temptation to live for you....."

For the first time since loosing you, I feel genuinely happy. I love waking up every day. I go days and weeks without tears. I have found all of the beauty inside of me and nothing makes me happier. I am making things happen that I never believed I could do. My life is solid, my ambitions plenty, my determination incessant and my heart stronger than ever. Yet it saddens me to forget, but I'm thankful I had the chance.

I'll never forget your name or how I felt loving you. I was better because of it. I'm still better because of it. I can only hope.... that you got something out of loving me too, and may you never regret loosing me...

That's where I've been......