I find it amazing how life can keep bringing you back to a place that is all too familiar.  While I was going through my collection of writings in an attempt to find something that would fit my mood, I stumbled across this particular prose which could have been written today.  Amazingly this comes from a time in my life when I was going through another loss, another dear and close friend dying of AIDS — but, in this case, it was a long time ago with a friend named Roger.

This was originally written as an open letter to him, if I remember correctly.  Perhaps it’s also an open letter to Derek.

Tears lace my acceptance of that which cannot be changed.  That is how I have endured every moment since we found out.  Despite indications to the contrary, I have been preparing for this day as best I could.  The word ‘inevitable’ has become a dear friend to me.  Being realistic is something I have tried to teach myself.  I have even practiced cheerful farewells in front of the mirror—an embarrassing activity to say the least.

Yet no amount of preparation could have helped.  The vast emptiness that now represents the space you occupied is a lonely, bereft place.  Trying to fill it has been an exercise in futility.

I am amazed at how my time with you has been packed away so neatly in the recesses of my mind.  Those mental boxes are never so far away as to be imperceptible.  Even when I am not looking at them, I know they are there for I am reminded of them by visions of your bright smile, your cheerful laughter even unto the end, and your sweeping happiness that filled a room even when your body was small and frail.  Such memories dash through my heart endlessly.

Yet it is time to discard the past to its rightful place so room for a new future can be made.

Will there be a time when your absence will seem natural?  Will there be a time when someone else will sing new songs capable of filling the now empty hall where your voice so often carried the mood to new heights?  Will the void you left behind ever be more than a hollow place?

More than anything, I miss your smile, and the silence is unbearable.

[circa 1991]