for you.

I can tell you where I was 365 days ago at this exact time.
I was lying in my bed.
I couldn’t sleep.

You know there’s not a single picture of us?
I spend half my life taking pictures and somehow, in all that time, I never managed to capture a moment with you. Ultimately, I don’t need a picture. I remember.

I’m sixteen years old, I’ve never seen you before in my life,  it’s the very first day of our Jr. year in high school, and your turning around to tell me that our teacher smells funny. She does.
By the end of class, I know your name and your life story.

Fast forward a few months.
We’ve become friends.
Your at my house, my little brothers don’t know quite what to make of you, because unlike a lot of my friends, your actually talking to them.
They like you- you know lot’s of stuff about video games.

It’s our high school graduation.
Your getting a standing ovation.

I’m trying to come see you.
I’m cussing at all the cars around me because there’s traffic and I’m lost and City Of Hope is a hard place to find.
But your happy to see Lauren and I.

It’s a year ago.
Your grandma is gently teasing me because I don’t know what to say to you and I can’t get you to talk to me.
Finally I ask you how you are, and in typical me fashion I just say what comes to mind and say “Hey Brian, how are you? I know that’s kind of a rhetorical question…” And then you open your bright blue eyes and say two words to me: “Rhetorical. Question.”
Today is difficult, there is no contesting that.
I haven’t forgotten you, and I miss you.
There is regrets, of course, as there always is when someone leaves the world too early, but the best way that I know to pay tribute to you is to live.

Just to live.

~ by behavingbadly on May 14, 2009.