A Writing from Before

(In memory and love)

Dear Haley,

We had life, you and I. Yes, as kindergarteners we had the world as it is so longed for by those caught in the race of time. A life of dried glue flaking off our tiny fingertips. And our new school outfits transformed into dancing kaleidoscopes of paint: swirling blues, purples, reds, and yellows. That was our life.
We had weeks of climbing that twisty green slide. The thick air in that 12-foot tube still chokes me as we scuffle, heaving to the top. Those were our weeks.
We had days in the swimming pool. Oh those Gilbert summers with hot, hot sidewalks. The ten steps to the gate made us feel like coal-walkers, dancing across a singeing river of red. You couldn't swim, so I suspended your arms as you kicked with all your might. Then the foam from your effort would rise up and encircle us tauntingly, but those were our days.
Then time grew, along with the miles between us. Catastrophe smacked your already failing heart into that unfeeling bed. It was the cold hospital room and the IV embedded into the thick purple vein visible through the paper skin on your hand that brought me back, but I was there and it was our hour. An hour of more than clashing instruments in the next room over and a nurse's soft hum as she mundanely walks past. I ignored the crusted pain etched yellow in your face. You smiled for me. You always did...
An hour and then seconds. Seconds where your one embrace opened my eyes to the irony death cultivates, seconds richer than life. Accumulated seconds once filled with busywork became individual seconds of pink-kissed blossoms spotting the tree outside my window.
Oh Haley! We had life, you and I. Yes, we had life and weeks and days and that hour and a second which turned into nothing. But when I remember to step back and value the worth of individual seconds, we have the world again, as it is so longed for by those caught in the race of time.

Forever, my friend.
Kami