I’m not sure why I even count how old you would’ve been today. Because you are not here. But the answer is 36.
Before I open my eyes on your birthday, I attempt to remember all the great times you and I had. Some are clear as day; some are like a fog-filled room with blurry edges, and only feelings guide me along this trip down memory lane. It snowed this weekend, and I think of our last trip chest deep snow in the trees. Just the sound of me and you and the birch and aspen trees swaying and rattling like a string of bones. I think of the picture I took at Stowe of you reading TransWorld Snowboarding on the can—I keep it in my bathroom, and it makes me laugh every time I see it. I think of riding our bikes to the fort we built in the woods and hiding out there. The camping trips we took to Strawberry Park in total downpour rain, having our first beers together. The countless trips to CHCP when you were little and a blue aardvark stuffed animal that you clung so tightly to. I remember the time you were walking in front of me on the beach from Cheeburger Cheeburger and throwing the leftover fries above your head while a thousand seagulls swarmed down around you, and you thought they were attacking you. I think about every day I could spend with you at work because we worked in the same business and how lucky we were to have had the opportunity to make professional time our personal time.
It’s a montage behind my closed eyes, and I can feel myself smiling, but I refuse to open my eyes because when I do, I know the reality of the first light. The reality that today, we won’t be celebrating your 36th birthday tonight.
Behind my eyelids, I imagine what you might look like today, what kind of man you would have become. What other chapters we would have written over the last four years, what you would have taught me because you were, and remain, my unrelenting mentor. I’m more lost than ever without you David. This year has been the most challenging it has been in a long time. There are so many times when I wished I could’ve just picked up the phone or walked over to your place and sat on your couch and not have to had said anything and just watch a movie we’ve watched one hundred times before.
I imagine a road trip that never ends, snow-banked walls not unlike what the walk to work will be like today, going anywhere you want to with a playlist I made that you will ever truly understand.
I’m trying so hard right now to not open my eyes allow the reality of this week begin, not a second before we’ve spent the only time we can together celebrating your birthday… behind closed eyes.
