18

The feeling had built until it filled my head.

I sat in the exact position that a body of this shape and structure would rest in if devoid of muscle activity and placed on its rump in this spot. Just and only breathing. In and out with the breaths.

Staring wildly at the grave marker. There was a rock there. The sky was clear at least. Bright and sharp and crisp, like the atmosphere had thinned slightly when he passed through it.

Thinking that somehow a moment of my life had passed without my having thought to remember it. And now scrambling to piece together something--any one thing, a sort of memory, or some other thing for myself--I realize that the ones I have are all wrong, the memories. All inflated to something that they were not when they happened or skewed by misinterpretation or distorted by my own quirks or just faded and fading more. And none of them even if remembered ever end up being what they were in reality anyway. Everything is polluted, unless you grab onto something real.

And so I still try to remember everything I can, but decide to especially remember the simpler things and to keep these simpler moments that we had with him front of mind and unpolluted. Because those simple times, I think, were closer to real life. And they maybe were experienced in close to the exact same way by the two of us, he and I, when they happened. And that is something to hang on to. That at one point in time we both saw and felt the same real thing.

They were all just moments. All of them. But all worth so much in the end. And certainly worth remembering and keeping with you....

...So put those seemingly trivial moments that you had with him in the same spot where you carry your personality, and your drive, and your motivations, and your empathy, and your compassion, and your outlook on life, and your actions and decisions as a father and as a husband, and your friendships, and your Faith, and your Hope, and your Love...and have them make you a better you. Make those moments something to live by and for.

And so before it happened, I bought him a compass. A simple compass. That I thought I would give to him when the time was right so that he would know that we wanted him to come look for us when we needed him and he would have it to help find his way. Because we will, need him. I never did give it to him. It was stupid. And he doesn't need it anyway. He's here...with us still.