Dear Aaron,

Dear Aaron,

The unanswered questions continue to cause irritation like the sound of a leaky faucet, the incessant drops drumming against the bottom of the stainless steel sink equal to the sheer number of questions that remain...questions to which I’ll never receive answers -  at least not on this side of Heaven.   The leaky faucet cannot be quieted.

I talk to you every morning when I walk the dogs.  I fill you in on the house sale, what song I’m learning on guitar, what upcoming plans I have, whether heading to a friend’s house for lunch or getting Clove treated at the Vet for the millionth time for an ear infection.   All our conversations are one-sided.  

Every single day I look through your photos on Face Book and Instagram  All of them.  I spend a lot of time staring at the few last photos I ever took of you, dumbfounded that at the time I had no idea they’d be the last.   I long for just one more photo of you.

Our last text conversation from the evening of June 22nd, as we jokingly texted each other from different rooms of the house, remains in my cell phone.  I have it memorized, having read it so often since you’ve been gone.  I’ve not received a text from you in two months and 12 days.

I find myself torn between two worlds - yours and mine.  

Here, I’m forced to put all the pieces of my life back together without you.   I have a large support system but I still wake up every morning alone and I go to bed every night alone.  With the exception of an occasional dinner with friends, I eat dinner alone.  I am single again.  And, I don’t want to be.  I didn’t think I would be after we met.  But, I am.  And, yet through it all - while trying to ignore your shirts in the closet every time I open the doors, doing the same with your toiletries in the bathroom, and wading through every memory we shared together while in this house, I fight every single day to see the beauty this world still has to offer.  

Because my story didn’t end.

It severely changed course but it didn’t end.  And, sometimes the only hope I have is that perhaps my best memories have yet to be created.  That in spite of everything that has happened, I must push forward, remain open, live life to the fullest and come out victorious. 

Yet I so badly want to be where you are.

So, it's difficult to stay present and grounded here.  I’m constantly wondering when we’ll see each other again, playing over and over in my mind what that reunion will be like.  My desire to see you and talk to you has me bursting at the seams most days and inevitably I wish time away just trying to get closer to the day where everything makes sense; where I can be with those I love the most in Heaven and where all my questions get answered.   I know I’ll get there some day.

But, not knowing the number of days between 'today' and 'someday' is excruciating.

I don’t know how to let go - to fully move on, while keeping you close at the same time.  I don’t know how to live this life, fully present to the miracles that occur all around me on a daily basis while wishing that I could be with you and my mom.  I’m pushed forward, drawn into the mystery of what a brand new day holds while being pulled back by what used to be and what I wish still was. 

Maybe someday the pull won’t be as intense.  Maybe someday my heart won’t feel like it’s being torn to pieces every time I think of you, wishing we could be together again.  

Or maybe life’s push just gets stronger as it continues to entice me into yet another day...

The promise of a new day, the laughter it may hold, the creation of new memories...just promise me, Aaron, that you'll be with me through all of it.