I miss you. I really do. Oh, I realize it can't be helped that you're gone. But I miss you, anyway. I think of you often. Even when I don't want to, my heart just reaches out and plucks you from thin air. "Here," it says. "Don't forget this."

You were such a big part of my life for so long. I counted on you being here. I counted on the dawning of each new day bringing with it the certainty of you. The surety and the inevitability of you. And as twilight's opaque curtain descended, I always stopped to reflect and thank the gods for you. For you and for the part of me that you are.

In my innermost being I knew, I suppose, that I would not have you for all time. Perhaps that is why I could not get enough of you when you were with me. Perhaps that's the reason I tried to absorb you, inhale you, monopolize you, assimilate you. You were my hero and I couldn't get enough.

I relished every moment we had together as fully as I knew how. He is here now, I told myself. Enjoy him now. He is here in this moment. Not out there somewhere in the future, waiting for another window. And not back there in the past, hiding from the light. He is in this moment and this moment only. This moment is all you will ever have.

That is why I lapped you up like so much sweet cream. Rolled around in you and savored you. Dabbed you on my wrists so as to always have the scent of you at hand.

I miss you.

I miss your wisdom, your knowledge, your vast experience. I miss your warped sense of humor and your proclivity for survival. Where are those days we enjoyed when I need them? Why can't we save precious moments, put them aside like photos in a memory book or money in the bank, and retrieve them at will? Why are the most treasured moments so gossamer, so tenuous, so intangible?

Just once more I'd like to sit at your feet and listen. You can talk about anything you like, anything at all. Whatever you say, I know that every word from your mouth will expand my mind, make it grow and become more than it was. I know that in simply having your example before me, I will live my own life a little better.

I last heard from you on a Friday. Or was it a Monday? I can't recall. I only remember the acute loss I felt when I realized you were gone. That loss stretches backward in time now, much farther back than I would like, devouring the days, hours, and minutes since we last spoke. I remember the emptiness, the void created by your absence. That is very vivid in my mind. I remember joy replaced by longing. And I remember the awakening of courage born in its wake.

There is naught to do now but drive on. It is what you want, I'm sure. I cannot turn my face to the gods and implore, "Why?" Nor can I beseech you with that same question. You are missing for a reason. I know that. I tell myself this is also a gift from you, this absence of yours. I tell myself that it is making me stronger, more resilient, more self-reliant. I tell myself these things because it takes a large measure of each just to get through the days without you.

I do not snivel. I do not quake or hesitate. I try to follow your lead, do as you would do. That is all that is left to me now ... to imitate you, impersonate you, glorify you in my own esprit.

I miss you. I really do.