Each year that goes by it is a surprise you are not with us. As I talk to people about my story, my friends, how I lived into teenager-hood, you are there...and now you're not. And I still don't know how to understand that. Today I cry anew for you my old friend; my friend who wasn't allowed to get old. You'll never make it into your 30's. You're missing it--our kids, our new tattoos, our stupid mistakes, the arguments over rubbish new movies and music, and what constitutes a classic. You would laugh at my jumble of an accent living over here in Scotland. You would laugh that I, of all people, have become a yoga teacher--but I would have made you try it! I would've seen you in a few weeks when I come back to visit the U.S., but now...I'll visit your mom, and we'll talk about missing you together.
I wish I would have shaken you; locked you away until you got ahold of you again. I wish I would have really known how much you were slipping away into world's that should never be discovered. I will not stand by ever again. I will stomp my foot, I will rage, I will make them hate me because I won't leave them alone. You will be the last I let slip without a full-out war. We still miss you. Still see you in the movies we watch. Still think of you any time we see someone playing the drums. You are here in spirit...but oh how we wish it was you in whole.
