It is so strange to think that today you would be 31. Although I have written the memory of your life unlived., I still can't help thinking, "what if"?
What if you had been able to spend the last thirty years living a life taken too young? Would you have inspired and encouraged all of us to be more than we became? Would we have been as close as I imagine? Would you have been giving of the world, loving and kind? How would your presence as an adult shaped the world around you?
All your birthdays have been hard, but this one has me struggling in new ways. Maybe it is because I have been trying to get back to a family lost to both of us. Maybe it is because I find myself in a year of appreciation for life and thus knowing yours is gone seems so ...unfair. Maybe it is because this year I've lost a great friend and so I am more raw to the feeling of loss.
Life is strange and unplanned, despite all the best efforts. In the past few days I've been given the opportunity to speak to the kind of life I want to live, the kind of things I want to be remembered for in death. I am sad that you weren't given enough time here on earth to be able to have answered that question. That serves as a reminder to me that There is no tomorrow in which to become the person I want to be, with the kind of life I wish to have.
For today, in all my sadness, I am going to think of you and I am going to remind myself that being alive is not enough...I need to live.
Today I will do my best to celebrate your life. I'll take your clothes and shoes out of the closet and breathe you into me. I will take your pictures off the shelf and look at you lovingly. I will sing you happy birthday and make a wish for you. I will read the loving and supportive words for friends and family who celebrated your life with us.
I will ache in this loss, cry until I break. But I will also be happy that I was ever given an opportunity to have met you and loved you. I suppose in someways I am learning that Gods greatest gifts to us are truly the ones he only lets us borrow on a limited time.
I love you Breezy. Thank you for the ways you continue to add value to my life.
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