here, still

1 minute read

Sam,

I’m still here.

I’m still counting moons: 223 since you’ve been gone. Eighteen years—two of your lifetimes! How can this be?  

Too much time has passed, I know, for me to hope you might still one morning come padding out of your bedroom, smiling at me as if nothing happened. 

You might be nine or twenty-seven, either way, we’d get right into it. You’d be telling me all about where you’ve been, the places you’ve seen, and how much you’ve missed us. And I’d be gulping air, hyperventilating, pinching myself—pinching you! “Sam, you’re here! Look at you! Your face! Your hair! Is that where you got those pajamas? Where did you say…? You have no idea—well, maybe you do—how much we’ve missed you! Come here! Let me grab my camera! What? Sorry to interrupt—I’m just so…I can’t even—go on, go on, tell me, tell me more…”

I’m still saving you.

Scanning and digitizing and backing up all those photos I took of you.

Baby pictures. Birthday parties—one through nine. Your face when you weren’t looking. Zooming in close up, eyelash close, watching you living life, performing your magic, daydreaming.

And…I’m scanning your school papers, stories you wrote, and your artwork too.

My beautiful boy, I would do anything to see you again. To hear your voice, your stories. To touch your face, hug you. To take another picture of you, of us, cheek to cheek.   

I’m here, still.

Remembering you, thinking about you, loving you, imagining you, every day, every hour, missing you, saving you.

I’ve been here.