A Letter to the One I’ve Lost

I don’t know where you’ve gone.

It makes no sense to me that you’re no longer here.

There’s a song by Iris DeMent that says:

Everybody’s wondering what and where they all came from.

Everybody’s worrying ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.

I’m okay with not knowing where we go.

But I am not okay with not being by your side.

I am not okay with not getting to talk to you one last time.

I am not okay with no longer having the chance to sit beside you — to vent, to apologize, to say thank you for being a part of my life.

I am sorry that I didn’t realize sooner how truly precious you were to me.

I’m sorry I didn’t ask you about your day more often.

I’m sorry I didn’t have you walk me through your life and tell me your story — from your point of view.

I’m sorry that I assumed I knew.

I’m sorry I focused on the small things, when I should have stepped back, seen the whole picture, and marveled at the fullness of your being.

You were my very, very best friend — and I didn’t notice.

We were about to become even closer.

We were about to get to know each other in ways I hadn’t yet known you, or myself.

But they took you away from me.

They took you away from your beautiful family.

And now they invent stories about who you were — and you’re no longer here to set the record straight.

I don’t know where we’re going.

I don’t know where you are.

But if what they say is true — I hope we reincarnate.

I as your mother, so I can guide you and shower you with love.

You as my grandmother, so I can sit on your lap and learn from you.

I as your daughter, so I can be parented by you.

Or once again as your sister, so we can experience the kind of love they so brutally cut short.

I don’t know where we’re going — but I hope the aliens show up and tell us there are multiple universes.

I hope they let me hop into their UFO, peek into another timeline, and see a version of you and me — laughing still.

I don’t know where we’re going — but I hope the first law of thermodynamics is real.

That somewhere out there, there’s something that’s you — running through spacetime, hopscotching across galaxies, experiencing the wonder of the cosmos.

I don’t know where we’re going — but they say there’s no past, no present, no future — only now.

Maybe that means I always have you.

And also, that I never really did.

Somewhere in the now-that’s-the-past, you are still hugging me, letting me know you love me.

While I don’t know where you’ve gone —

And I don’t know where I am since you’ve gone —

I promise to love you always.

Until we meet again.