It’s been 7 months and 21 days since you passed. 204 days. 4896 hours. I’ve always been told that time heals everything. And while I want to believe in those wise words, I find myself wondering if that’s just something people tell themselves to make the pain more bearable, and not actually good advice. It’s been 204 days and I still find myself waking up crying. I find myself thinking about coming home to you. I find myself wondering how you’re doing. Out of those 4896 hours, all of them have been spent thinking about you. Even while I sleep, you make your way into my dreams, making it harder and harder for me to believe that as of 204 days ago, I’ll only ever see you when my eyes are closed.

Sitting on the beach today, looking out and watching the children drag their feet along the white sand, lagging far behind their respective guardians, I thought of you. I thought about how you would have taken a handful of sand from the ground and sprinkled it onto my leg, knowing I hated it, but doing it anyways. I thought about how you would laugh as the toddler in the bright pink shorts pulled down her pants to pee, despite her parents pleads for her to wait until they got back to their room. I thought about how you would smile and close your eyes, and I then heard your laugh. I heard your laugh in the farthest part of my brain, and as I closed my eyes it got louder. I saw your gentle hands, and your strong neck, and I felt you beside me. The breeze picked up, and as the sand danced around me, I searched for you. I searched for the smallest piece of you. It occurred to me, that perhaps, I’d spend the rest of my life searching. Searching not to see you, because the impossibility of that was too great, but searching to find the pieces of you spread through the skies, and the water, and the wind.

It’s been 7 months, and 21 days since you passed. 204 days. 4896 hours. 293760 minutes. 293761. 293762. So I’m writing to you, not because I think you can see me doing so. Not because I think you’ll ever read this. But because I believe that some parts of you are still with me. And I want those parts to hear me when I say, that even as time progresses, even as I begin to move on, I will search for you. You are the wind that surrounds me, and the air that I breathe. You are forever a part of my world. As the wounds begin to heal, and the scars begin to fade, I will never forget them. Because forgetting them, is forgetting you, and there is no amount of time that could allow that to happen.