closure

i hate the ever growing distance between me and your voice, your laugh. i hate that remembering you is like sorting through filing cabinets, thousands of them, while trying to effectively process those memories. so many millions of things have happened since you left me in the emotional youth of my early 20's. So much change has occurred and wisdom has been gathered. the world i live in and the person the lives there didn't exist eight years ago, when you left. i am certain, however, of how welcome and comfortable you would be in the world that stands today. it makes me smile to think of how proud you would be of your son. so proud, you would be of the man he has become. you would be a glowing and doting grandfather, and you would adore your daughter-in-law...

the only thing is that there is a gaping hole in all of those moments because you are missing. a fundamental keystone is absent, despite the many reasons why you should still be here. i think of you at least once, every single day, and during those times it feels fundamentally wrong to know you are missing.

i am afraid that as years pass, i will forget you and the things that i love and miss about you. if i concentrate especially hard, i can still sometimes hear your voice. it is difficult though, and it gets more and more so all the time. its been almost eight years, but it may as well be 80 years. gone is gone...

i will always write about you and cry for you. i will always look at your picture and i will listen to your laugh when i need to. it will never be ok, or acceptable that you are gone. it is ironic that you were the one who first pointed out the bullshit concept of closure to me, as it applies to grief. you taught me that whatever part of the pain of loss that is supposed to close or end or become final is a therapeutic impossibility. growth and time and healing can move you further from the constant pain of grief, but our hearts will always show scars, and evidence of the hurt we have felt.

nothing has given me closure, and i believe my Dad. i never expect it to.