I've never done something like this, not really anyway. I mean I write this to an audience of none and I wrote a year long journal that will never have eyes grace it again so this is similar in a way. A way that this wont ever be read in the way that I am writing it, but the process of writing it is an important process so I'm doing it anyway.
Today was strange. Last night I went to sleep without music and thought that it was weird to surround myself in silence when all the time I surround myself in noise. Today was even more silent.
And tear filled. I hate hearing a persons voice break.
I didn't cry today though, but here me out first. My crazy logic told me that because we all miss you we don't need to cry to express that. Oh no, because we miss you so much it just shows what a happy effect you had on everyone and we should therefore express ourselves with laughter, smiles and talking. What do you think?
I was in no place to say any of this today because I wasn't the bearer of the greatest amount of grief, plus I have a far from normal outlook on life and death.
But I still think that more talking should of been involved because everyone was there so everyone would of had a good story and there is very few other times where so many of us would be in one place. We have all the time to sit in a sad silence, today shouldn't of been such a time.
Share stories and have a great day even if that lead to guilt and more tears later at night, but at least you would of had a chance to be happy and celebrate life in death.
Memories aren't going to live on if they aren't spoken.
But again this is all just me talking.
Speaking of guilt, I felt a lot of that today. At your funeral I felt a great weight on me. I am in the same position in this family that you were in in yours. The older son. I can feel it when people look at me and draw that comparison, I can feel it when people talk about the grief being the same to them if I had died. I want to hide from that sometimes because it makes me feel guilty just by being here. Again, like your funeral, when your parents hugged me it was the strongest hug I have ever felt. Feeling someone hold onto me so badly was the saddest thing I have ever been part of, I promise you that before that day I have never cried so much and still to this day I have never cried so much.
Another thing I feel guilt for is that I never got to be as close to you as I could of. I was a shy person which never helped and I was thrust into new faces. You liked football and I liked to play but didn't have a passion for it and because of that I am sad to admit I never strived to make a connection.
But as the years went on you got more and more into your music. Had a little band with mates and my you were good. Well, you were good for a teen band.
Can't believe you were going to go support The Kooks. You do realise that I still avoid listening to them, I have their album but I have never listened to it all the way through, I'd ask if you'd recommend it but obviously you would.
You also realise that you unintentionally got me into Jack Johnson which then made me focus more on my acoustic guitar which is still the case today. Thank you.
It makes me sad that we never got to share these things. Sit and talk about music and guitars.
Everyone else is going to be feeling the same thing, missing you and missing the what could of beens.
But this really hurts me, it's a guilt I'm going to have all my life but it's one I need.
I'll tell you why. You died during the six week holidays which is a time I like to change myself as it is. Simple things from changing how I write the number seven or the letter a and maybe some more important changes. I always wanted to be more out going but your death and the resulting guilt really pushed me to grasp everything I could, take more chances and all that. I'm still living like that. I thank you again. I'm still not really outgoing, I still have my simple comforts and find some people hard to make conversation with but I believe I lead life to the best I can. And looking at myself in this moment I will be as bold to say that I have done a fucking great job!
I want to ask you about that arboretum place. I don't like it one bit. This place is built on death, so many lives represented in one place yet there is no soul to the place, no character whatsoever. How can that be, really?
Each to their own, and if it helps people to be there then it helps them. Your tree was nice, all evergreen and it made me think that if I had a tree planted in my name I would want one which changes with the seasons. I also hope that I am never remembered in such a way that you have been. Maybe it works for you but it's far from my cup of tea. There was though one beautiful scene. Opposite your tree was this river I think. I say I think because the water was so still I found it hard to believe it could be a river, and across this water were two horse. Two beautiful horses. I'm sure you wont mind that I didn't focus all to hard on the balloon release because I was staring at these horses, soaking up life and not getting hung up on death was the right attitude I'm sure you'll agree.
It would be great to be celebrating your twenty-first with lots of drinks with you, but instead I am here in bed. I still had lots of drink though.
And I will celebrate you each and everyday because you a firmly knitted into the fibres that make me, me. I don't think it's sad to have a death rooted inside me because it makes me love life all the more. What will be sad though is that more people are sure to join you, I'm going to have more dead loved ones becoming a part of me as I go through life and soon enough I will be dead myself and hopefully changing peoples lives for the better.
I wish people looked at death like I do. It may be the end of one life, but it's also a chance for everyone else to realise what they can be doing.
The only problem is that I don't know what to expect from death when he comes a knocking. Most of me thinks there is nothing. Literally nothing. The optimist in me thinks there may be something but then a piece within that makes me think there isn't a thing as "eternal bliss" and that I would take an eternity of nothingness over an eternity of something any day.
Either way it doesn't matter, all that matters is filling in the time between then and now with the things I want.
I've never said this to anyone before so I thought you should be the first. I really wish that you could read it. Maybe you can but I doubt that very much.
I probably shouldn't be so negative when talking to the dead.
Thank you.
P.S. You bastard! Taking that Great Merenzo secret to the grave with you. We'll never know how it was done now.
And I like it that way. I am always guaranteed a smile when I think about that and how the mystery will still live on without you.
