I thought I knew how much I miss you....

...but I was wrong.



It's been over two years since you rowed away, and I thought I wasn't desperately looking for your boat anymore. I thought I'd felt the worst of the pain, cried most of the tears, remembered the most important things about how perfectly you fit in my life - brother, soul mate, best friend....

I show your art work to anyone who will sit still long enough to look. Your shirt is still on a hanger on the back of the door. I have a heart full of memories and stories, images and experiences together. All of these things surround me every day. There was going to be no forgetting, no more loss of you that I could prevent. I would be able to think about you without crumbling, without wondering who ripped my heart out of my chest for no apparent reason. Time would smooth out the raw, mean edges of death and loss.

That's what everyone told me.



...but they were wrong.