“From Where You Are”
So far away from where you are
These miles have torn us worlds apart
And I miss you
Yeah, I miss you
So far away from where you are
Standing underneath the stars
And I wish you were here

I can remember the day so vividly. As though it were a memory set on repeat, a broken record playing over and over again. All the pain I have ever felt in my whole life was nothing compared to the moment I had gotten that early morning wake up call. The one ring that changed my life forever.

It never occurred to me as the bright red lights of the alarm clock read out 3:45 AM; the little red dot illuminating that it was indeed early morning, and in the back of my mind I could hear the dreaded ring tone chiming from my cellphone that your mother was calling me. It wasn’t the seconds that ticked by as I waited for the irritating, seemingly loud scream of the shrill song to end that I would miss the call that would have me buckling to my knees in disbelief and anguish all at once.

But I should have known.

Now knowing, that it wouldn’t matter; I knew there was nothing that I could have done. No words that could save your heart. No tears that could save your mind. No amounts of love could save your lifeless body.

But I should have known. Known that these were going to be the last moments of your life. Known that in those hours I wasn’t with you, could have been the last hours of “us”.

When the ringing persisted, I groggily groped around for the chiming sleek mobile to end its horrid shrill. I could remember vaguely cursing in my own mind, trying to find the reasons I gave that woman my number. Upon finding the phone I flipped it open, my eyes still trying to open, but failing to do so.

“H-Hello?” My voice was tired, groggy and sleep-filled.

“He’s dead! My baby…he’s dead!” Your mother’s insist, broken voice wailed on the other end.

My eyes finally opened, as though I had never been asleep at all. My body pulled up into a sitting position.

“What?!” I questioned, hoping and praying by any means that I had heard wrong. There was no way that he could have just…died.

“J-Jessie…he’s…” A choked sob cut her off, another sniffling murmur left her lips, reaching my ears. “He’s gone…”

I sat in silence, not comprehending that what I was really hearing was true. I completely disregarded everything I knew about what it would mean to get that call. I refused to believe that you had just given up. I refused to believe that everything the doctors had said, everything that I had saw was a completely utter lie.

This just couldn’t be happening.

I could hear the echoed cries of his mother’s wails still on the line, but it just seemed all distant. I wasn’t starring at anything in particular, just trying to recollect myself. In the background of all the noise, my clock flashed 4:00 AM. The buzzer going off and screaming in the silence, breaking it.

That was the moment when everything all around me shattered to a million pieces. The twinkling of my life, like glass, falling to the ground, bouncing off the pale walls and forcing me into reality. I was alone…

I don’t know when, or how I hung up the phone. I don’t know when, or how I moved from my bed, gathering my things and changing. Everything was just a blur. I moved, without moving. I did, without knowing what I was doing. My body moved on autopilot.

The next thing I knew, I was standing at his room door. The shiny metal plate reading off the numbers, 1303. I blinked, my eyes burned, and my head pounded, my heart beating hard and so fast in my chest. The muscle reverberated off my chest plate, the echo so loud in my ears. I reached up to the cool handle, twisting it and pushing open the door.

The first thing that came to my sight was your body. Your lifeless, breathless body just laying on the bed. You looked so peaceful, as though you were in a deep coma. I still couldn’t bring myself to the belief that you were in fact gone. You were paler then normal, the only thing that could be significant evidence that you truly weren’t alive anymore. Besides, the fact that you weren’t moving. Not even a small muscle twitch to let us know that you were only sleeping.

I watched with a deep rooted hope that you would just suddenly open your eyes, smile over at me and tell me all about your dreams. That you would just…be okay. But you weren’t.

But I should have known.

I clung to that one chance that the doctor would come in and tell us that it was just a reaction to the medicine. Just give us some kind of explanation. I stepped more into the room, my fingers wriggling the hem of my shirt. I was moving in slow motion, and everything around me was faster. I narrowed in on your face. Your handsome face, stoic and pale. I reached for you, hoping that my touch would give me that momentarily relief of seeing your beautiful eyes. Those deep dark pools that I had fallen so much in love with.

My lip quivered, my eyes tearing up, my face was heating up, a cold sweat on the back of my neck. This scene just wasn’t right. You, here on this hospital bed. Your mother, clinging desperately to the window pain, letting out all her insecurities, all her suffering in loud, cat-like wails. Your sister, sobbing and whimpering by your bedside. No—this just wasn’t right.

We were suppose to grow old together. You promised me eternity. We were suppose to be forever. You said we were. So how can you just leave “us” like that? How is it…that you can just go away and never come back? What reasons did you feel justified to leave me here, all alone, with nothing but a broken heart?

I know I shouldn’t be angry. I know I shouldn’t be so deeply pained the way that I am—but I just can’t understand why? You were always such a fighter! You were always the one who made things right, and now, you were the one that was making things so horribly wrong.

I wanted to be mad at you. I wanted to be so upset with you. I wanted to hit you, shake you, but what I wanted most was to bring you back. I remember flinging myself to your body, letting the streams of tears fall to your covered shoulder, clutching your blankets, falling to my knees. I remember how my wails matched those of your mother’s.

I didn’t even know when the doctor came in, trying to give us his condolences. His pity words not even reaching my ears. It didn’t mattered. Nothing he could have said would make this pain go away. Nothing he could say would change the fact that you were gone forever.

~ * ~

Out of all the horrible things that could have torn us apart, it was a car crash that was the one to do it. That one journey home, that devastated our lives so deeply, was the sole reason for my heart to be breaking in so many pieces. It had only been a day since the call…since the hospital. It felt like eternity.

It didn’t feel right to be sitting underneath the starry sky alone watching as the moon shined down on the earth. It’s silvery glow illuminating the earth. I already missed you so deeply. My heart cried out to wherever you were, my fingers longed to touch your skin. Another set of sorrowful tears left my eyes, falling down to the ground below me.

A soft sob left my lips, a shudder to run through my bones. It all just seemed to cold now that you were gone. The world around me, although the air felt like summer, was just so empty, frozen and silent.

Nothing could ease this emptiness inside me, this hollow loneliness that ate away at my heart. I closed my eyes away from the moon, the one thing that kept reminding me of you. But even trying to block it out made it painful. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly.

I wish you were here with me. Right now, I could need you more then anything.

~ * ~

I miss the years that were erased
I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face
I miss all the little things
I never thought that they’d mean everything to me
Yeah, I miss you
And I wish you were here

~ * ~

I knew that now would be the toughest parts of my life. Day by day, I would have to sit by and watch silently as everything just went about normally, and I would be slowly dying. Without you here I saw no point in living. When the time came, the day we were to be married, I cried more then I ever had. You weren’t here to see me in my wedding dress. You weren’t here to see me looking so beautiful just for you.

It was that moment that I knew, forever I would be alone. The years would be grueling and long. They were all erased the second you closed your eyes to die. I looked up to the ceiling of your bedroom, feeling the silky sheets beneath my skin. My finger tips grazed the fabric, feeling the cool caress.

I glanced to my side, seeing a photo of us that you loved so dearly. I smiled weakly remembering that rainy park day. That day seemed to fit my mood now then the bright sunny day outside your windows. I moved my eyes to your pillow, turning onto my side and reaching for that spot. The sun shined in through the window, its warm beams heating up my cold skin. I could almost see you still laying there. The way it use to be when the sun would shine in on your face. You would look even more handsome in those precious moments of the morning.

I moved away from your bed, going to your dresser and touching all your things. Your hair brush, your cologne, your watch, your pocket change, your wallet, your keys. I looked up to the mirror, gazing over my blotchy and red face, contorted in agony.

I picked up your cologne, opening it up and brought the scent to my nose, inhaling deeply. Inhaling you. I closed my eyes, imaging you putting it on. The silly way you would make a ‘Z’ formation. Then the silly way you would spray a little extra on your neck, knowing full well how it drives me crazy.

I never realized that all those things that I thought were completely ridiculous would be the things I truly loved about you. I didn’t know how much I would miss watching you do those things either. The more I longed to watch you each morning from here on, almost made me buckle down once more.

How could you leave me like this?

~ * ~

I feel the beating of your heart
I see the shadows of your face
Just know that wherever you are
Yeah, I miss you
And I wish you were here

~ * ~

I remember having a dream about you the other day. It felt so real. It was real. You were here with me again. I could feel your heart beat underneath my hands, your soft skin underneath my fingers, I could see your face, the way you smirked when I would shudder in your arms.

I woke up, my eyes clearing their hazy sleep, and seeing that I was once again laying in my own bed with you nowhere in sight making me come back to reality. I sighed and starred up at the ceiling, a soft murmur leaving my full lips.

“Where ever you are…I miss you…and I wish…I wish you were here.”

~ * ~

I miss the years that were erased
I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face
I miss all the little things
I never thought that they’d mean everything to me
Yeah, I miss you
And I wish you were here

~ * ~

It had only been weeks, but felt like years. Everything around me reminded me of you, and I couldn’t escape it. I would remember stupid little things that I couldn’t before. I would remember things that you’ve told me from when we first met, that I would never be able to when you were alive. I would remember the little things you always did just to make me smile.

You were the most precious person in my life. The most important person worth living for. Now that you were gone, I couldn’t remember why I had to keep living.

As the hours passed, the more I missed you. It was beginning to become hopeless to think of anything else. Nothing else mattered to me anymore. It never really did. You made everything important.

You made me see the world in a different way, in a different light. You made it seem so much more than it was…and in a sense it was. You made the most predictable things unpredictable. You made life a worth wild adventure. But now, it was bleak and worthless.

I think that was one of the many things I missed the most about you. The way that you could just change the most simple things into something extravagant. The way you could just seem so excited over learning something new.

It brought a smile to my face, remembering the gleam in your eyes when you could just take something so ordinary and turn it into something special.

~ * ~

So far away from where you are
These miles have torn us worlds apart
And I miss you
Yeah, I miss you
And I wish you were here

~ * ~

The day that we took your ashes up to the ocean cliff you loved so much, it was one of the most painful, yet relieving moments of my life. It was just as sunny as the days after you were gone. It had almost seemed like you were up there smiling in heaven, and that was the only reason the sun had a purpose for shinning so brightly.

We stood there on the cliff, your mother, your sister and I. We clung to your memory so desperately, almost suffocatingly so. There was no doubt in our minds that you were still with us. Your memory was what kept us going…that’s why…that’s the one reason why we could do this.

We waited for the perfect moment, before opening the urn and throwing your ashes to the wind. We watched, teary eyed and smiling how you just floated by, just like you always wish you could. We joked how you were finally flying. We laughed and cried all at once.

We would miss you.

I would miss you for the rest of my life. I would never forget you, I never could. You meant more to me then life itself, and I would gladly give my life away to have you back. I would gladly die for you if you came to me in some way and asked me to be with you.

But I knew, that wherever you truly were, you were happy. You were okay. You would want me to keep living, to keep loving, to keep remembering.

But I still miss you so desperately, and I wish you were here.