Unbidden Thoughts

A wispy vision of your smile, and the freckles on your face drifts through my memory. Your long slender hands, and the peanut butter sandwich’s you made us for lunch that summer when I couldn’t cope. Spooning on the couch and the crackle of a fire in the dead of winter, your arms holding me tight. Tears blur my vision and I try to put the past out of my thoughts. It’s hard to look forward knowing you’re not there beside me, even as a friend.

Sometimes when good things happen during my day I want to call you up to share my elation and excitement, knowing you’d be happy to hear about it. With a twinge of sadness I realize that part of my life is no more. I can’t call you up to share my highs and lows. In the late hours of the night, as I ponder over a turn of phrase, a line of inquiry, a methodological problem in my work I think back to the time when we could go over it together and work towards a solution. It was so easy with you because we were both budding professional historians. If I couldn’t find the words to explain the problem you could pick up the clues and help me solve the puzzle. The easy banter back and forth over our work. I wonder if you miss that too.

But I’ll never know, and so I must pick myself up and continue on. Slowly one foot in front of the other towards something I can’t distinguish anymore. The echo of your words drifting in and out of my thoughts.

“I like to think of you just continuing on. Some where out there, growing old…”