Since you’ve been gone life has moved on. I suppose that was to be expected. But it is still strange how normal things can seem without you. I thought we would struggle more, that the change would be catastrophic, but the reality is not what I imagined. 
	It is not that we don’t miss you. That would be impossible. Too many things bring you to mind. Dad describes them as bombshells. Seeing your chair without you in it. Picking up the phone to call and talk and then remembering you aren’t there to answer it. Finding one of your notes tucked away in a drawer or stuck to the mirror in the bathroom.  

Sweetheart, i love you with all my heart.

	It is a slow pull, this grief, tugging tears from us at unexpected moments. But I fear moving beyond those tears, afraid it may mean moving beyond memory. 

	We call each other several times a week. Always the same exchange. 
	“How are you doing?”
	“Not too bad. You?”
	“I’m pretty good.”

	We smile and laugh and go to work because life does move on and we must move with it. But in the quiet moments we realize we aren’t doing well and we don’t know how to fix it. 

	I dreamed of you last night. The first I think I’ve had of you since you left us. The details were already fading when I woke. But my face was wet, eyes hot and salty. Whatever had happened broke my heart. I think we were in those last days, when words fled your besieged mind and all that was left was that sidelong glance and mischievous smile. What did you see when you looked at us? Something made you smile when all we could do was cry. What joke did you hear, what story did you remember to make you grin so wide and innocent?

	In my dream you laughed and danced. And all I could do was weep, throat aching as I tried to take your hand but you were already a step beyond. 

	We do not mourn like those who have no hope. 

	The night you passed on we opened a bottle of wine and drank a toast and ate the chocolate we had bought you for Christmas. We laughed and looked at pictures Dad had from when you were young. In all of them you smiled at us and we smiled back because the grief had not yet taken hold.

	Now the silence has set in. 

	You told us in the days close to the end, in the midst of the pain and frustration and paranoia that some day we would look back at this and laugh. You promised we would laugh. You promised us an end to waiting here without you. 

	You promised.

	I had grown accustomed when life grew hard and the tears came too easily to call you for comfort and advice. That last semester of college I must have called you every day. Just hearing you made me feel better. But now all I have are words on a page. 

	We miss you much.