Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives.
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.
The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.
We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.
-John O'Donohue
I was too young to understand or to even begin to comprehend the enormous impact your decision would make in my life, the ripple that started on this day sixteen years ago, the fifteenth day of April, the day you died.
I think of you daily but the thoughts of you are especially frequent during this month, the month of your birth and the month of your death. On the third you would have been thirty-one, just eight months older than I am now. I often wonder about what you would be doing, how your life would have played out, and what awesome and precious experiences you would have encountered. But along with these questions that will forever remain unanswered, I just as often reflect back on the times we shared together and of the memories of you that I safely carry within my heart, the numerous memories I am so very thankful for, the ones that allow me to keep my connection to you.
The intensity of my grief has lessened over the years but my love for you has multiplied. My heart misses you, the whole of you, the presence of you. I have come to accept the fact that I have to live this life without you in it and I am able to sit here today and say I once knew you, a boy that changed my life because you lived and because you died.
My closest cousin, my friend and my confidant, I loved you more than I ever admitted. I'm sorry I never told you how much you meant to me then but my hope is that its not too late for you to hear me now...
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