“On some days I just feel your absence more than on others. I don’t know if it’s because missing you gets worse or because I need you or because I want to hear your voice and know I can’t. Then there are days when I nearly forget about it: when I get to be blissfully ignorant for a couple of hours and don’t think about how you’re no longer with me. But then I remember that you’re gone and it’s like a punch to the throat, a kick to the chest that knocks the air from my lungs. On some days I want to feel the pain. I want to embrace it. I want to forget that it does get better and that time does ease the pain. Yet it hurts. It hurts like it did on the first day. It hurts after a month and it hurts after a year. And in ten years it’ll hurt all the same.”