I try to just be happy to have known you
Like they said to
But it hasn’t got easier
So I ponder that perhaps time isn’t really flat
Somewhere you’re still sneaking us sweets for breakfast when you go to get the paper
Watching football, dancing to Nick Cave, making stew
You’re in Vegas getting married to the love of your life
Kissing your babies on the head
Even just driving me home — I hope that somewhere I’m in your soft, easy company
I hope you’re telling us your stories in the garden
But that gets dangerous because I can forget
And start to think you might be there to say “Hey, kiddo” next time I knock on the door
Perhaps it’d be easier to just be happy to have known you
If you were old when you went?
I try and compare, and find it’s impossible to say which empty garden chair by the back door in the sun is worse
There is nothing to measure, nowhere to point to which hurts more or less
Only this ever-fresh, yawning loss
Only a lightness, an open space
Only something missing, hands that reach out and come back empty
I am trying to just be happy to have known you
And I am, I am
Even in just my small way
Especially to have loved you so spontaneously
And because of who you’ve left behind, so much of you, the same uncomplicated kindness
I am happy to have known you, and proud too
But I am sad that you’re gone
Sad without much wisdom or gratitude, I’m ashamed to say
And I wonder if any amount of trying could make that change