Two years ago a friend of mine died. It struck me hard at the time, and I ended up writing this about a year later, however I haven't really shared in until now.
Time is a slippery thing. It seems like only yesterday we were all in that house on Summer street, hosting barbecues and by the stream in the back yard. Only, that ended 12 years ago. It seems like you have been gone forever, but you left us just 1 year ago.
Time is a slippery thing. Did I feel the right things one week after you were gone? After one month? Do I feel the right way now? Sometimes I don't think of the time we spent together, for days at a time I forget that I can't call you, see you, send you posts on Facebook. Other times the absence is palpable. I feel like there is a hole in the Universe where you used to be. I feel like it could be ages since we lost you, or days. It's been one year. Why then do I ache as though you have just gone today? Why did I pass the entire day yesterday without a thought about you?
Time is a slippery thing. My feelings have no way of measuring the interval between the time when you were part of my life and the time when you were absent from it. So I mark out the intervals in the world around me. The Earth has spun once since we lost you. The Moon has circled the Earth once since we lost you. Now we have gone around the Sun once since we lost you. When the Sun and Earth were last aligned in this way we had been hoping, wishing, praying that you would not be lost to us. Returning to this place in sky is like returning to our old house on Summer street finding that it and everything else is changed. How I had wished to find the barbecue going, to see you sitting by the stream, to step back into the time when we were there, but I cannot.
Time is a slippery thing, but it only slips in one direction.