Will,

Sometimes I am scared that I will forget your face. Or your voice. Or how exactly you sounded when you said, “Hey, Kris.”

Sometimes I am scared of forgetting how beautiful your life was.

Sometimes I am scared of a world that goes on when you are gone.

I am scared of the eighteenth year, which means it will all be equal – the amount of time you lived, the amount of time you’ve been gone.

I am scared of my wavering belief in God, in Good, in Hope.

Here’s what we put on your tombstone:

“I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” – Exodus 19:4

Here’s what you might say to me, to calm my fears and give me peace:

“I come home from the soaring

in which I lost myself. 

I was song, and the refrain which is God

is still roaring in my ears.

Now I am still 

and plain:

no more words.

To the others I was like a wind:

I made them shake. 

I’d gone very far, as far as the angels, 

and high, where light thins into nothing.

But deep in the darkness is God . . . .” 

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Love Poems to God)

I love and miss you, Will!