I Miss You

     One of my closest friends passed away a few months ago. Two days after Thanksgiving, as a matter of fact. He had contracted cancer and died soon after. Mark was part of my core group of friends. There were, at the time, four of us that all went to school together and all lived locally. At least one of us was with another of us, at minimum, five days or nights a week for the last seven years or so. This, without a doubt, is the hardest hit I've ever felt. That child inside of me has buried himself so deep that there are many days when I wonder if he's gone and left me. Fortunately, he shows his face often enough to allow me to feel he, and I, just need more time.

     The loss I feel with Mark is a loss I feel every single day. There hasn't been a day, since he's gone, that a tear doesn't roll down my cheek as he enters my thoughts. I am baffled by how much I miss him. Wait, that's not the right word, but I am surprised, in a way. I had a couple months to prepare, I had been trying to set myself up since the day Connie, his wife, told us the horrible news. When he died I handled it ok for a few weeks, I'm finding, however, as time goes on, it's getting harder instead of easier. I can only assume that it will get better. I really hope so. I spoke to Shrink about it, and though I was surprised she could understand me through my tears, said I had actually started to grieve. She said I had always talked about how I was always telling her how important it was to me to make sure I could help others that were going through this with me. That may be so, she is a pro after all.


     The now three of us that remain of the core are all really trying to keep things as close as possible to the way things were. We each realize that all three of us have our own way of dealing with it, along with all the other things that happen in life. We don't see each other as often as we did before and that's ok, I guess. We, myself included, have all been really busy, though, at least in my case, some of that busyness may be self imposed. I can't help feeling, and I know it's normal, that something's missing. As a group, we were complete. Well, we're not a group anymore, ok, maybe we are, just a different group. I, as well as the other two, feel as if we're missing a major piece of the whole that we were. This may be the way things are meant to be and, if so, we'll all just have to deal with it the best we can.

     I had a few private conversations with Mark in the weeks before he died and I made some promises that he insisted on. One, I've just been terrible at. I promised I'd be checking on Connie on a regular basis and I've failed miserably at it. I was texting every day or two at first but it's slacked off big time. I did send a text apologizing and Connie, as is her way, assured me that it was ok. I'll work on it, I really will.

     Mark, I miss you more than I ever thought I could miss anything in my life. I'm gonna steal a quote from a post on Facebook I saw the other day. It perfectly describes what it's like. " My memory misses you, it asks about you every day". Trust me my brother, every single day.