Just When I Think it's All Good...

Dammit Greg,

I made it through your birthday this year.  I was even happily recalling some of our hi-jinks without getting all wistful.  I've recently been able to talk about your death much more matter-of-factly.  But this morning I was browsing online for a new tent, and it made me think back to all of our Boys' Trips, and now I'm missing you again.

That's the thing I don't believe you understood when you checked out.  You had no idea how intertwined you were with our existence... our happiness.  You had no idea how many people you would hurt, and how long that ache would last.  Like I said to you earlier, your suicide left a special kind of pain.  It's like herpes, man... the gift that keeps on giving.

I guess I need to be clear about something, and I'll explain it in terms you'll understand, because you've always loved the water.  The grief is kind of like ripples in a pond.  That initial splash, when you actually died, was like throwing a huge rock into a perfectly calm pong, and it threatened to drown us.  Now time has passed.  The center is calm again; the ripples are smaller as they're spreading further away from that initial violent splash.  This isn't a perfect analogy though, because I'm starting to see that those ripples will probably never completely go away.