foREVer

So, here we are, at that time of year again… It’s hard to believe, even now… In a few short hours, it will have been two years without you here… Two years since you left this world, so many years too soon. This year, you would have turned 30. You would have made us smile, and laugh until it hurt, and tears streamed from our eyes… if only you had lived a bit longer. I’m torn, as I seem to write this letter all over again… the third one that I’ve written just for you. One, the day that I found out, one last year… and one now. And each time, it seems that I have something new to say. Some resurfaced memory in which you brightened my day. The re-realization that for years, you were the entire bit of light in my life… And now there is darkness, and a wide, gaping whole in my world, marking the spot where you used to be. It doesn’t seem fair that you left us so soon, Jimmy. I suppose it’s true when they say that the good die young… But, oh, how I wish that it wasn’t true for you…

Two years ago… I thought that my friend was playing a cruel, cruel joke… One that was not funny—not in the least bit funny. She told me that you had died the night before. No one knew what had happened, no one knew why. We just knew that our hero, the man that we loved so much was gone, never to come back. I cried that day. I don’t remember the last time I had cried before that moment. I had never cried because someone had passed… It always seemed like it must have been their time to go. But not with you, James. You were taken from us too soon. And I cried, until I had no tears left, until I was sick, until there was nothing left… Nothing but that damned, dark hole where my sun used to be.

Maybe to some, this seems odd. They think that I could never have known you well enough to miss you this entirely. But, my dearest friend, my brother… For years, you held me together, wiped the tears from my eyes, even as you lived across the country… You made me smile, even in my darkest moments. You showed me what it meant to live, to carry on, even through the darkest of days. And you showed me what it meant to love. You had all of our hearts, and you loved all of us in return… God knew what he was doing when he made your heart larger than normal, I suppose…

I don’t think that I will ever understand why you were taken from us… Why you had to go, even though I think you knew that something was coming. You knew that we would find our way. Your family, your friends… Everything would be fine… Someday. But today, is not that day… Not for me. I feel like the weight of the world rests entirely upon my shoulders, along with the weight of days gone by, wishing that you were here with us. But I hold to the hope that someday, I will see you smile again.

I hope that you’ve found peace, wherever you are. I hope that you’re happy, and that all of your new friends—I know that you’ve made plenty—love you, just as much as we still do, down here. God must be an amazing drummer by now…

Keep playing that music in the sky buddy. We’ll meet again someday.

Rest in peace Jimmy. Love you foREVer.