Years.
17 of them, to be exact.
The chasm between the amount of time you’ve been gone and the time that I got to spend with you is ever widening. It’s easy to feel cheated, robbed, and paralyzed by the unfairness of it all. It’s easy to cling to anger, rage and despair. Grief moves like an ocean, unpredictably and unforgivingly. Sometimes I’m set adrift, still caught up in the depths of it. But then I remember that we are just souls floating in this realm for finite amounts of time. Our journeys are never linear or etched in stone, and nothing is ours to claim forever. I can be angry about your shortened life or I can revel in what I've learned from its brevity. After all, I believe the remnants of our time on earth are best surveyed through the lens of gratitude and everlasting love. These are the gifts we leave behind. Gratitude for the way grief reminds us to treasure the things we might otherwise disregard as minutiae, like those little check-ins you’d do at the most random moments just to make sure all was good with me and "the boys", your OCD routines, the way you smelled, and the annoying things you did that got under my skin. Nothing seems too small or insignificant. I wish I had a jar to safely contain every memory and retrieve it on a whim.
You taught me to hold space. To treat human connections as sacred; as an exchange between souls, not meant for profit or personal gain. You helped me strive to be a little kinder; more attuned to pain and suffering. I know that ultimately we are only just walking alongside each other through a portal to another door. Maybe that’s the purpose of it all. Just to be able to walk each other home.
And now that our darling Baba has made her way home to you, this anniversary feels different. How I wish I'd been privy to that reunion. It’s healing to know that you are together again, relishing in the beauty of that unshakeable bond. Thick as thieves in life, I picture you two in the spirit realm embracing and shaking your tail feathers, full of laughter and joy.
We borrow our time here. The years are a lottery draw. Whether we get 25 or 85, we make an impact. You and Baba are proof of that, Dave. Our love transcends time and space.
Your body was lost, but your soul is infinite. ✨
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