Alone

Your smile hides what is aching inside of you, but you can't hide it from me. Your generosity, your forgiving nature, your acts of kindness hide the gaping hole left in your heart. Even if those suffering around you don't notice your suffering -- because you tend to them, console them, help them with their grieving -- I notice your pain. I see your grief, your anguish, and how you smile to hold it all in, to protect us from it, to keep your heart from imploding.

Your laughter shines brightly, until a melody of your youth plays on the radio and your mind drifts off onto uncontrollable waves of melancholy. You recall silly childhood moments, planned schemes against your parents, and fights that led to broken furniture, spilled food, and being grounded for a month. He was the only person who accepted you as you were, your imperfections, your ugliness, your rawness -- without question -- and he is gone. He was your witness, your defense, your alibi in all your childhood claims. You have no one to reference now, only your own memory, which will slowly, eventually, abandon you too, leaving you alone with doubt at your side.

Your breath shakes whenever you speak of him, and the glimmer in your eyes dull just enough that I notice. Your stomach sinks when you realize that it's not your morbid imagination concocting these facts -- it's all too real. He is gone from this world, and you will never be able to hear his infectious laughter, or hear his Army war stories, or argue about who was the favorite child. Your eyes turn to the side and you stare off into the distance, and you wonder what could have been -- what should have been -- reiterating questions that do nothing more but reopen deep scars on your heart.

But I see you. I see your pain, even when no one else does.

You are not alone.

I am with you.