As I sit down to write this note to you, I have to confess that I don't really believe in "the other side" so much anymore. At least, not consciousness as we know it on the other side - I don't believe in spirits watching over us, monitoring our progress eternally from some ethereal plane. I believe after our bodies expire, our energy goes out of us into the universe in some different form, and that what remains of our spirits are the parts of us - archives, memories, feelings, impressions, mannerisms, influences - that are carried by the living left behind.
And, oh, do we carry you, even after you've been gone from this sphere for almost as long as you were on it.
Sometimes carrying you is felt as palpable loss. Realizing that you've been gone fifteen years today is one of those times. My wedding day with Chris was another, as I looked over at my groom with joy and excitement, and yet felt a twinge realizing that someone was missing, someone who should have been standing up at the altar with his friends beside him. I felt that loss again just a few months ago when Ryan got married, as he and Alan and Chris and I stood in our adult bodies, spoke of our lives as they are now, and I looked at our older faces, remembered the seventeen-year-olds who once looked back at me, and tried to picture what your smile with the confidence of adulthood would look like today.
Chris is not quite the same as when you left - your leaving changed him, undeniably, and the concurrent passage from youth to adulthood has hit us both hard. He is as brilliant as ever, an amazing provider, compassionate, witty... but some of his spirit is not what it was. His flame of creativity doesn't burn as bright, muted mainly by the stress of daily responsibilities, but also suffering from a lack of inspiration to kindle the flame. He and I are life companions, but we work on different creative wavelengths, inspired by different muses. And having been in creative partnerships myself, I can imagine what the permanent loss of his partner (and lifelong friend) did to his drive.
Other times carrying you is a joy, a feeling of having been blessed with the time we did have with you. We still share inside jokes that originated with you, tell stories of our adventures with you. We remember and watch your creations, marvel at your sense of humor, recount stories you told us (and you could tell a story with the best of them).
And we wonder, wonder constantly over what you would have made with the world as it unfolded after you left. The internet was a passing geek fancy fifteen years ago, but it has exploded since then, and I have a feeling you would have been right there with every advance. How can I not wonder what you would have done with this world when I have a high-definition video and still camera sitting in the palm of my hand every day, the same device that keeps me updated on the comings and goings of my friends and family, the same device with which I can access an unprecedented collection of human knowledge and expression, the device which I simply refer to as my phone?
I'm not going to lie, the world has gone through some pretty nasty changes since you've left. But there have been plenty of freaking awesome ones. Those clips above? Posted (thank you, Kevin Walsh) to Youtube, a site accessible worldwide where millions upon millions of videos are available to watch, and anyone can freely share whatever the hell they feel is worth committing to video. (And now that video is mostly digital rather than physical and storage capacities have grown exponentially, there is a whole lot more being recorded.) The vast majority of it is shit, of course, but there are some gems of expression to be found, and even seemingly trivial bits of ephemera are capturing the attention and amusement of a global audience. I can't help but think you would have found it to be an irresistible playground.
Maybe video wouldn't be your thing now. Maybe you would have moved on to other forms of expression. You and Chris showed talent at Photoshop humor before anyone else I know - I can think of a few examples of your work that, as juvenile as they may have been, would still have me laughing hysterically today if we were able to pull them up from whichever dusty hard drive they currently rest on. Maybe you would have been a brilliant web designer or developer, or an amazing digital artist, or you would have found fulfillment pursuing some other path that you had yet to encounter.
I cannot blame you for the way you left us. How could I possibly, when I've tried doing the same, and been on the verge of doing so more times than I can count? I wasn't in your personal hell, had no idea you were even there at the time... but I've been in hell myself. My heart is not filled with anger or disbelief thinking of your death, just... sadness. Sadness at the unbearable pain you must have felt, sadness that you could find release no other way, sadness that the pain denied you the opportunity to experience the love we all had for you, the love that we didn't get the chance to fully appreciate and put forth until it was too late. I am sad for all that we lost, for all the world lost when you died. But I am mainly sad for the joy that was denied you when you were gone too soon.
Chris and I will carry you every day of our lives, even when time passes (as it does) without conscious recognition of what you were to us. Our children will hear stories about you as our new friends do now. Someday we will finally get around to unearthing the full cache of your video creations and digitizing them, so that we can enjoy your wit anywhere at any time, and share it with the rest of the world. And we have memories that will bring smiles to our faces and enigmatic laughs to our throats when we're in the cyber-cryo-bio-whatever nursing home we get stuck in fifty or sixty years from now.
You'll always be there with us, frozen in time perhaps, but never lost entirely.
