8 years gone by

How does that seem like so long ago and yet just like yesterday? You were so vibrant and full of life. Everyone's friend, even if you sometimes felt alone. You said "screw it" to convention and forged your own path, often through the mud. We fought sometimes, usually small squabbles.. but there was that really big fight we had in the driveway. It was twilight, my favorite time of the day and the uv rays made your white shirt glow. We screamed at each other, surrounded by farm fields on a summer's night. I don't even remember what is was about, I just know that when I think about it, I would give anything to stop mid-sentence and just hug you. Just lay all of this down and feel you hug me again.

It's eight years now since I kissed the foot of your whiskey soaked coffin., the gray/silver enamel glinting under the hot July sun while people stood around in black, sweating and numb. I can still feel Jean's tears burning into my shoulder. That is one moment in my entire life that I hold close, when she turned and clung to me and cried. If I can say anything good of that day, it is that one moment in time, when she needed me and I needed her.

There's so much I wish you could see now. Every time I go to Pittsburgh, I run the old routes you took through the Pennsylvania turnpike. Every time I pass Breezewood, I hear you. For just a moment, every truck on the road is yours, every driver is you. I wish them all safe journeys home quietly in my head. I sometimes wonder if they have a kid sister too.

Sometimes, when I'm dreaming, I see you. You're sitting at a table and looking at me, just chilling there like you're waiting patiently. I see you. I smile. I wave or sometimes and turn my head. And then it hits me. You're gone. This is my one chance to tell you, to say what I've held onto for so long. To tell you that I love you, and that I always have. That I always will. To apologize, to make things right, to stop feeling so damn guilty. But you're gone. You fade, or you disappear instantly. I try to talk but the words won't budge. I wake up with a lump in my throat and pray that some day I'll get it together.

It's raining outside. I got married last month and you would have been there. I wish you had been there. I wish you were here. I miss you. I love you. And I'm sorry.