I go down this isle every time I go to the grocery store. Every time. Nothing is ever new. But today the Cheez Whiz was bigger and brighter than ever before. I stopped in front of it, laughed to myself and said “hello”. Then we shopped together for a bit and you moved on.
Loss is something we cannot prepare for even when it comes at the end of such suffering. Because until that last breath is taken, despite all logic, we hold out for a miracle.
But a life that touched so many is a life well lived, in spite of its short years. And because of this we each hold a piece of you. Although death, especially of one loved so dearly, creates a space in our hearts, I know that it is in this space where we will find you. But we must first learn to quiet your deafening absence and not to run from where you once were. And although it is the quietest moments that we fear the most, we must meet them head on. Because it will be in those very moments when you will speak to us the loudest, and in them we will know that you will always be with us.
Until we meet again.