Letting go.

Friday November 18th was the one year anniversary of the death of a very close friend of mine. He was someone with whom I shared many good and bad times. Someone who, at one time, I thought I would share my life. Funny how nothing every really goes according to the plan. His name was Chuck McClure, and he was one of the few really great loves of my life. He died at 26. He had so much to do, but so little time to do it. You would have thought a guy with a penchant for speed like he had knew something the rest of us didn't. Hell, who's to say?

Today I drove by the site of the place he died for the first time. I guess in my heart I thought if I never had to go by that tree with all it's yellow ribbons and crosses, he wasn't really gone. He was just somewhere I couldn't call, or write. I wonder how he would have lived differently had he only know that one important thing...how and when he would go. I wonder how all of us would live differently if we knew exactly how much time we had on the clock.

I only got a quick glimpse as we sped by, but it was like somehow in setting eyes on this place I had so feared, I knew I could finally let him go. He isn't here. Maybe I thought he would be sitting there in amongst the fall leaves waiting for one of us to come and pick him up. Maybe he would be leaning on that great oak and smoking a Newport in his beige cords and polar fleece, all the while checking his watch in annoyance at my lateness. Alas, he isn't there. He isn't anywhere "here" anymore.

I know he is still with me. Things happen in my life now that anyone else would say was "creepy", or "crazy", but I know it's just Chuckie bored, and being just has crazy as I remember him. I smell his cologne when no one is around. I hear his laugh...I remember his smile. It was the greatest thing about him.

I drove by that place today...the last thing he ever saw...and I knew it was time to say goodbye. Time to let go of the sorrow, and the anger. Time to stop wondering "what if" and "why". Time to let him go. The sadness of my keeping him inside would be the last thing he would have wanted, and maybe in some strange way by still feeling this way, I am keeping him here.

He's not in the woods. He's not in the yellow cars I see pass on the streets. He's not on the other end of the phone....the only place I will be able to find him until it's my time to go is in my heart, and as long as he's there I know he's never very far. Saying the words is far worse than knowing the truth. His is gone. I am here...I know he would want nothing more for me to live with laughter and hope...For both of us.

Goodbye Chuckie. I will love and miss you until I see you again. Go and fly....