My Dearest Friend

My Dearest Friend,

It has been so long since my last letter to you. Time seems to have a way with traveling onward without my knowledge. The days are growing shorter. The wind, with its urgent need to usher in a new winter, cuts through me while I make my way to the mailbox on a daily basis. The sky, once bright with the hot sun reminding us that the days will always be filled with a promise of better tomorrows, is now cloudy and dark. I can not remember the last time I set my eyes apon the warm sun, or its promises.

I hope my letter finds you well. I hope, no...I pray, that you are eating enough. I am sensing, from your last letter, that sleep has been kind. Visiting you nightly. You sounded so boyant in your last letter. So full of hope and cheer. That pleases my heart. Your happiness means so much more to me than my own.

The days are dragging on here. Since your departure, I have felt isolated. Cut off from civilization. I bide my time going through your old journals. Your handwriting is a comfort. It is a reminder of your existence. Of your love for me. And it brings warm flushes to my cheeks to read your description of me. Of the first time you held me. How you used to say my name out loud, just to hear the power behind it. I don't think another man has ever loved me as much as you.

Do you remember the last time you visited? You rode in on a storm. The rain had just begun to fall when you ran to my porch steps. I always looked out the window in anticipation of your arrival. I stood in the glow of the front door, holding out a towel for you. You had gotten soaked just from the short walk from the driveway. I still laugh over you snatching me into your embrace and forgetting the towel all together. You were always so anxious to hug me. To hold me. You'd lift me up off my feet. Then you'd laugh.

You always laughed. I wonder now what you found to be so funny. How could you walk through life so amused? Sometimes I'd think that this world, with all the trappings and hurtful people, never touched you the way it touched me. I almost felt like you lived in a realm above it all. The torture that we inflict on each other never was forced on you. Did you posses wings that I never noticed? How were you able to navigate existence unscathed?

Sometimes breathing hurts. Sometimes opening my eyes to the dreary morning is just too much to bare. The sun can hang over us all, but the skies remain a dismal gray. It has been that way ever since you took leave. I fear that it will continue to be this way always.

The second first time I met you, you walked into the room and just smiled. I have to go back to this meeting, because I can not recall the very first time we discovered one another. And I'm kind of angry over that. I'm jealous over the memories that you posses of me but I don't have of you. It seems you bonded to me without the benefit of my ever having returned it. But, I digress. The time I do recall first meeting you, I remember your smile. I saw it before I was able to see the rest of you. It was so big. So beautiful. I remember thinking that you had the smile of an angel and that as longed as I lived, your smile would be proof that God did exist. It was that breath taking.

Do you recollect what you did after you saw me? I am sure do. You're memory always served you far better than mine serves me even to this day. You lifted me up and hugged me. You, a stranger to me, embraced me with warmth and love. Of course, I wanted no part of it. I didn't know who you were. It is in my insecure nature to shy away from those that may want something from me. I wanted no part of you and your heavenly smile. But, you wouldn't take anything from me but affirmation of a friendship. That's what was so blessed about you. You gave to me. You gave and gave. The only thing you ever wanted in return was the pleasure of being in my life. I just don't understand how you could ever find it so pleasurable.

My sweet, blessed friend. My mind goes back to the first night you came to my house. I can recall from my memory bank as if I were reciting a favorite poem. The story rolls off my tongue with the same lyric and procession. I laid in the floor, crumpled and tired. Did you even knock? That much I do not know. It was as if one moment I was calling to you, to hurry, then the next you were by my side. Hushing me like an injured child. You stroked my hair and brushed back my tears. You were kind enough not to speak. For words would have deminished the urgency of the situation. No. You were much too kind for that. Instead, you rocked me back and forth. Praying over me. Kissing my wet cheeks until the tears had dried and my head hurt from the strain of it all. Next, when you spoke, it was so soft. So tender. You answered my questions honestly. That was all I needed. Honesty and compassion. You gave it so freely.

How I miss you so. Every day is a trial. A trial that I find harder and harder to get through. Tears do not come as easily as I would like. Tears have the power to heal, don't they? After all, that is what is embedded in us as young children. Cry. Cry so the pain will go away. It's a pity that no one ever teaches us what to do when the tears hide from sight.

How is the weather there? I am sure it is beautiful. Are the trees still blossoming? Have you found old friends? Have you made new ones? I think how you must take long walks by the river. I know you said that was something you liked to do as a young child. I imagine, now that you have the time and the place, it is something that you make a habit of doing. 

I wish my letter would find me in better spirits. I was so hoping that my mood would have improved since the last I wrote. However, with sleep not visiting as often as it should, I can not help but keep a foul mood. I don't dream of you. No, you never visit me there. I only recall the past when I close my eyes and enter slumber. In order to see you, I must visit you in my daydreams. Maybe it's supposed to be that way. They say the dead visit us only in our dreams. I would hate think to that you would ever leave Heaven just to come say hello.

I must sign off now. My hear is bursting at the seams with pain and sorrow. I try to look forward to tomorrow, but it is another day without you. So, I find it difficult to do so. I will write again soon. Perhaps my next letter will find me happy and wishful.

I love you with all that I am,
                ~Wes