Goodbye Teej

C/O: God
Dear Teej,

Fuck.  Fucking… fuck.  I cannot even enunciate the growls and guttural sounds that are my best attempts at expressing myself.  Are you familiar with the stages of grief?  I seem trapped in a loop: Anger mixed with moments of extreme, honestly terrifying, sadness peppered with occasional bouts of denial.  I'm trying desperately to not direct all this at you, but you really haven't left too many other culpable parties.  Damnit, I just want to break things, burn things, and blow shit up.  And then run away (course when you've already made it to Bumfuck, Africa there isn't anywhere to go).

Then there are other moments.  Like earlier today when it was just me in the bush.  The wind, the endless trees and shrubs, and the sky big as it only seems to be when you there isn't a human soul in sight.  Beautiful and all mine.  It was a place you would have liked. A brief glimpse of something infinite.  It made me think of you and smile.

Of course like always here, the storms come.  That big sky goes dark and you rush to get home before the rains.  Sometimes you make it.  Other times the storm catches you and you are wet and cold and you want to hurry faster but the faster you go the more the drops seem to slice at your face.  Yet just as they come, all storms pass.  The sky parts and you see that ray of sunlight that never looked brighter because without that storm you'd have taken it for granted.

Fuck.  Why, Teej?

I'm not even sure if this is something I CAN write about.  Nothing I say sounds right and it all jumbles in my head.  But I'm not sure what else I can do to try and unravel it.  This is one of many trains of thought either written or ranted during those moments at night when there is nothing to distract me.

I miss you, Teej.  I already missed you, now I'll go on missing you.  You're a great friend.  You always have given more than you ever took.  You are a great person.  One who always strove to try to make this mess of a world better for all those involved.  Not a selfish bone in your body.  And so, though I am angry, I know I can't be angry with you.  I should probably change that to "shouldn't be angry with you" for accuracy's sake.

I hope you know how much our late night conversations meant to me.  The world is lacking now that your thoughts, ideas, and insights can no longer be heard.  And your dreams… those were good dreams.  I wish we could have one of those talks now.  I… but you already know the question I'd ask.  Though I know that no answer you could give would ever suffice.  If I could see but a moment through your eyes then maybe… but I can't.  And so I'm left in the dark.  One storm that will never pass.

I love you, Teej.  Always,

Dale

PS. You owe me a damn manuscript.