Your pictures are hung on her walls.
Memorials, and poems, and paintings, and drawings, and all that I see is you in her home.

And in his home. And their home. And that arena.

I didn’t know you, and I couldn’t have known you, you were gone before I knew him and them and I long to have met you and yet –
I feel you.
In my dreams, like a friend, like the wind in my hair at sunset; in the sprinkling of star shine that hits our back deck –
I feel you.

Your pictures are hung on her walls.
Memorials, and poems, and paintings, and drawings, and all that I see is you in her home.

And in his home. And their home. And that arena.

He thinks you pushed us together.
He knows you have his life in your palm.
He believes you’re still planning and plotting while you dance in that world beyond.
And he thinks that you hear him, and hear us, and the prayers they send up to you at night.
He thinks that you’re responsible for giving us chances to finally make things right.
He champions your memory, and he’ll let no one forget – that you’re still somewhere out there shimmying that puck, and guarding that net.

Your pictures are hung on her walls.
Memorials, and poems, and paintings, and drawings, and all that I see is you in her home.

And in his home. And their home. And that arena.

I didn’t know you.
I couldn’t have known you.
And yet, here I am mourning you.

A brother I might have had. A friend I might have loved. Another soul snatched from his life; taken and gone.
And they’ve settled on moving on, not without you, but with you, in a way I believe is the only way they know to come to terms with their grief.

And so,

Your pictures are hung on her walls.
Memorials, and poems, and paintings, and drawings, and all that I see is you in her home.

And in his home. And their home. And that arena.

And in our home, too.

— c ☆