Life & Love

I saw your face today as I was running down the street trying to catch up with a friend who was ahead of me. It took me by surprise because I hadn't thought of you in a while. Life is like that sometimes. Someone who meant the world to you at one time, who you thought you could never live without, suddenly isn't in the forefront of your mind. I used to scan all the faces around me, hoping to see you in someone's face and never seeing you. But today, today was different. There you were. It was just a heartbeat, just a fraction of a moment that I thought I saw you in a young man's face. He had the same coal black wavy hair and the blue-green eyes that you used to have. Ahhh, the way you used to look at me. As if I was the only person in the world. You would smile, as we danced in the rain.Your laughter echoing all around us.

I learned to live when I was with you. I hadn't been truly living before I met you. Seeing that face for a split second brought you back to me. It no longer hurt my heart to think of you. It no longer caused tears to slide down my face. It instead put a smile on my face and in my heart.

You have been gone now for longer than I had you. But your love does live on. It lives in the simple joys I get from watching the sunrise and sunsets. From the joy I get watching it rain. It's in the simple acts of kindness I try to spread. For you taught me what I know of love and of kindness.

You took a broken boy and loved him. You held him through his night terrors. You calmed him as he cried. And even as you lay dying, you said you would always be by my side. I have never truly forgotten you, but time has taken your place. The edges of your memory are blurred and your voice has been lost to that time. But the feeling of love, of hope, of dreaming has never been replaced. They still burn inside of me.

Sometimes they are dim, but they are there.

They wait sometimes for moments to remind me that they are still burning inside me.

Times like today, when I thought I saw your face in the crowd. Then I remember.

Sometimes I wonder what our life would be like if you had lived. I think of what we would be doing. The places we would have seen together. Growing older together. Would you appreciate these fine lines and wrinkles that time has put on my face? Would you still hold me and call me your cuore?

Today when I briefly saw your face, in that of a stranger walking down the street, I wished that I could feel your hand in mine again. I wished that I could feel you holding me again like you did when I was 19 and young and stupid and in love.

I have never loved another. You were everything to me. Why seek anyone else out when they would never live up to the standard you set. They would fail no matter how hard they tried. So I would never be that cruel.

Even though I keep on living, my hope is that one day, I will see you again and then in that moment, you will say I have been waiting for you and you will pull me to you and wrap me in your arms and we will never be parted again.