I fell to the floor of that hospital like the hand of God himself was the gravity on Earth. With each rolling tear, I shed a memory of the life I had with you. Card games to pass the time. Trips through the woods where you would teach me survival tips. You never taught me how to survive loss. When I heard you were gone, I knew moss lead to life, but it wouldn't show me where to go for death.

So, I ended up in a hospital. Where kids with their own problems were just as lost. And I met her. She would scream in her sleep for help but I was without a clue as to how I could help her. As I stared out the plexiglass window, with "help me" and "get me out" carvings becoming apparent with help by the street lights, I realized I had no clue how to help myself either.

The pills. Blue ones, white ones, small ones, big ones. They never helped. I was suckered into trying one after another, with a pinky promise of them helping to make me a happy kid again. The only change they made in me was making me come to an understanding that I'd rather writhe in pain that you're gone and never coming back than to live a life as an emotional vegetable. What fifteen year old kid wants to sit back and watch their friends enjoying the best years of their life while they're sat, struggling to find a laugh somewhere in the haziness of their own mind, only to come up with a subtle smirk hidden somewhere in a buried memory of the past.

It's been some years now. Five in three months. There's been a lot that you have missed in that time, but I know you're not far. When I think hard enough, I can see you ever so slightly in the background of all these memories. And I know it's you in my dreams. I can feel you, and you tell me everything is okay. That voice cracks through my rib cages and plays on the chords of my heart time after time. It's painful. To see you in such an intangible way. Not knowing how long I will have to hold your hand. To tell you I miss you. I love you. But I know you know, just as I know you are there.

Through this time I have learned more about you, and more about myself, than I ever could have imagined. You shine brighter in me with each passing day. Some days you shine so bright, there is a light that radiates from the core of my soul and it burns until it shines over everything. And like moths to a flame, I attract nothing but the beauty you carried inside of you all those years you gave to me. And the beauty is ever flowing and always growing. Like the first time a father sees his newborn daughter. Or the last time that daughter sees her father.