Tribute

Dear friend

I'm writing this letter someone very dear.

I'm writing it to you. Despite knowing there's no physical possibility you could ever read it. I think about you often, for you were the first person I can remember that actually gave a shit about me. And I mean, really gave a shit - not just someone saying they care and then never being there for you.

Before I made more real life friends, before my first relationship, you were there for me when I literally had no one else. You befriended me, for reasons I still don't understand, but for which I'll forever be grateful. From that moment, a close friendship quickly blossomed.

I still have all our old conversations on MSN, and emails dating back all that time. I will never delete them. Reading over them today is… eery. Watching your mood, your tone, your entire personality, sink into a pit that I didn't understand at the time. The demons you faced must have been so confusing and so frightening, and for that I am so sincerely sorry. I'm sorry I didn't understand what you were going through, for I was much younger. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you, and that my relationship caused us to drift apart. I'm sorry I couldn't save you.

When I found out what happened, it didn't register right away. I remember thinking it was a shame… but to be honest, it took about 6 months for it to click. And when it did, I wept. I truly wept like a little baby. It seriously broke me. You leaving, in ways I cannot understand, broke me.

It sounds stupid to confess that. We never met in person, though we had always talked about it being a possibility one day. But the friendships we keep, even ones over the internet, can be just as real and just as intense as any in-person friendship. Perhaps that is why it took so long to sink in that you were really gone.

After it hit, and I mourned, I wanted to visit your resting place. I know where you're buried. But by then-girlfriend did not want me to visit you. Which I find particularly absurd, seeing as you spoke with her too; she knew you, as I did. So why was she so against the idea? Well, I can answer that actually. That's what ✨ toxic relationships ✨ do to you, I suppose.

It feels so recent, it's hard to believe it's been 13 years already. You'd have be 32 this year, and who knows where your artistic skills would've taken you by now? I guess this, as many other things, we'll never know. What I do know, however, is that after all this time I would still like to visit your resting place. I've checked, it's only a 2 hour drive from where I live. Maybe one day soon… Maybe I'll visit you.

Sometimes I really miss talking with you. I miss sharing stories with each other about the new and exciting experiences we were having. I miss the old video chats and emails that we used to send one another when we were having a bad day. I miss the jokes we'd shared that no one else would have understood, because they were ours.

I miss you still.
And I always will.