Two Years Later
I wasn't originally going to post it ... I was writing it for my own benefit. But as sometimes happens, I had the sudden urge to share. So here we go.
Dear Jon,
I got an alert on Facebook yesterday that it was your birthday and it nearly made me cry.
It's been two years since I got that message from your brother, two years since I met the girls in Sauk Rapids for your wake, two years since we sat with your parents and told every funny Jon story we could remember.
Two years this Sunday since then...
We didn't stay in proper touch after you left Tech ... and that still hurts. Two years ago was the first time I hadn't called you on your birthday and I still have to tell myself it wouldn't have saved you. A part of me still wonders -- maybe if I had called, or if I had sent you one more email while you were deployed, or at least said hi on Facebook one more time.
Another part of me knows that once you had made up your mind, it didn't matter what anyone else said. That's almost sadder, somehow.
Remember our walks? Remember hiking up to the hill behind campus to sit on the railroad tie and solve the world's problems? Or those trips to Toys 'R' Us the five of us took just to play? Remember talking me into buying a three and a half foot stuffed alligator? I still have him. Or playing touch football in the Walmart aisles at midnight?
Then there was that time after you left during your first deployment. You called me from the middle of the desert and I felt ridiculously special. I wasn't your girlfriend or a family member or anything ... but somehow I was important enough that I got a phone call from a place you weren't allowed to specify. I even stepped out of lab for it, which you know I wouldn't do for just anyone.
To be honest I still get really angry with you at times. Ironically, of all people I think you'd understand that, so I don't try to pretend. I still think you were a jerk to leave the way you did ... but deep down, some part of me almost gets it.
Almost.
Sort of.
I still miss you, too. You'd best be keeping an eye on those kids of yours from wherever it is you can see them. They've got a lot of great people around them but their dad should be looking out for them.
I suppose I don't have much more to say right at the moment. Life is okay. Things are going well enough. And we're still telling our stories when we get the chance, although I suppose technically you wouldn't understand our Mountain Dew references the same way...
Maybe I'll get the chance to explain some day.
Love,
Ashley
*
Dear Jon,
I got an alert on Facebook yesterday that it was your birthday and it nearly made me cry.
It's been two years since I got that message from your brother, two years since I met the girls in Sauk Rapids for your wake, two years since we sat with your parents and told every funny Jon story we could remember.
Two years this Sunday since then...
We didn't stay in proper touch after you left Tech ... and that still hurts. Two years ago was the first time I hadn't called you on your birthday and I still have to tell myself it wouldn't have saved you. A part of me still wonders -- maybe if I had called, or if I had sent you one more email while you were deployed, or at least said hi on Facebook one more time.
Another part of me knows that once you had made up your mind, it didn't matter what anyone else said. That's almost sadder, somehow.
Remember our walks? Remember hiking up to the hill behind campus to sit on the railroad tie and solve the world's problems? Or those trips to Toys 'R' Us the five of us took just to play? Remember talking me into buying a three and a half foot stuffed alligator? I still have him. Or playing touch football in the Walmart aisles at midnight?
Then there was that time after you left during your first deployment. You called me from the middle of the desert and I felt ridiculously special. I wasn't your girlfriend or a family member or anything ... but somehow I was important enough that I got a phone call from a place you weren't allowed to specify. I even stepped out of lab for it, which you know I wouldn't do for just anyone.
To be honest I still get really angry with you at times. Ironically, of all people I think you'd understand that, so I don't try to pretend. I still think you were a jerk to leave the way you did ... but deep down, some part of me almost gets it.
Almost.
Sort of.
I still miss you, too. You'd best be keeping an eye on those kids of yours from wherever it is you can see them. They've got a lot of great people around them but their dad should be looking out for them.
I suppose I don't have much more to say right at the moment. Life is okay. Things are going well enough. And we're still telling our stories when we get the chance, although I suppose technically you wouldn't understand our Mountain Dew references the same way...
Maybe I'll get the chance to explain some day.
Love,
Ashley
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