Sunday Scribblings

This week’s words are “Phantoms & Shadows,” and we are supposed to write about things and people, times, places, events and how our memory has treated them. As you can see, I have not strictly complied, but this is what came to mind, so I went with it.

I would relive every day from April 1986 to February of 1998, the twelve years you spent with us on this planet. I would embrace every opportunity to hold you, talk with you, and cherish all that you had to offer. In this relived existence, no moment would pass without me conveying just how much your life meant to me. For more than ten years I have thought—on a daily basis—about the missed chances, and how my pride, anger and confusion stopped me from being the brother you deserved. I have been haunted by my failure to use kinder words, softer touches and gentler expressions. I have tried hard to overcome these failures and to correct the flaws that allowed me to fuck-up the chance I had to make you my world, but I struggle to overcome the emptiness that is ever present in my soul. I question my ability to love anyone if I could not love you the way you deserved, the single greatest person to ever cross my path. If presented with this, I would gladly forgo all that I have accomplished in this life – would pass on the travel, give up the degrees, walk away from the cushy life I have built for myself . . . . but, as we know, dreams and reality do not often coexist. So instead, I am destined to spend my life wondering what if, why, and how could I.