BNB

It is the eighth month anniversary of Brian's death today. I feel as if I miss him more every day as reality sets in that he really is gone in a tangible sense. I never visited his gravesite and am now wondering if I should have. It almost seems to me that he is still over in Afghanistan, out on some lengthy mission and that I will get a phonecall from him any day now telling me he is back. The fact that I will never hear his voice again, never look in to his eyes again, never feel his arms wrapped around me in a hug is more than I can stand.

I'm moving ahead in the grieving process but still broke down as I copied out the below poem. I would give decades of my life to have him back even just for a day. How can he really not be here? I can always feel him, hear him, but it isn't the same. I want all of him and won't ever have it again.

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away ino the next room.
I am I and you are you,
Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used to.
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow,
Laugh as we always laughed
At the jokes we enjoyed together.
Pray, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
That is always was.
Let it be spoken without effort,
Without the trace of a shadow in it.
Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity,
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you
Somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.

-Henry Scott Holland 1847-1918
Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral