Death is final, something I have always talked about but was fortunate enough to never experience till now. Its beyond words how someone can lie in front of you immobile and be there and yet not be there for all practical purposes. The night vigils when you think they are just sleeping only to jolt to reality that they wont ever wake up. Funerals bring people together in a way that I would never wish on anyone. The warmth of another body is comforting in ways words can never be probably because they affirm our own lives and help us in some small measure to reach the cold void where the departed was. Talking about the deceased helps, as does reminiscing but in the end nothing takes away the emptiness which seems to be a permanent part of one when you think about never being able to see them again. Death is final but grief is not, neither is the sense of loss which I will feel at every milestone in life when you wont be there. I love you more then I could ever express in life, I will miss you more then I ever thought. The only consolation I cling to is my conviction that you are at peace and in a much better place then this world could ever offer and yet the selfish me persists in crying out like a lost babe, wishing you were here. I miss you.