If yesterday were tomorrow would I love you differently today? For today’s emptiness would not be known to me. I would be as I have been…a sensory driven soul dizzy with the noise of this world; a passionate muse at times too busy to hear her own music. But you heard: You took captive each verse. Oh how I wish I could remember the exact exchange that we didn’t realize was our goodbye. Did my thoughts take flight into words or did they remain unhatched? I count all goodbyes as small compared to what lives beyond hello. I know you loved me all the way to goodbye. And I will love you within this noise until I tell you hello once more. 

If yesterday were tomorrow would I love you differently today? I would thank you for being in my pattern. When someone becomes a thread in your life, how do you take them out without unraveling the tapestry? How do you create with colors no longer seen? How do you not panic at losing the sharpness of aging memories? And how do you stop wanting to share?

Sweet friend, today I miss sharing with you. I have nothing of importance which needs telling; no action is required for receiving ears. I just wanted to tell you I thought of you today many times: when I stepped into the church, when the smells of Starbucks took me in as two strangers walked by, and when I picked up a zebra patterned necklace at the antique shoppe that I just knew would make you smile. For some reason I carried with me down several aisles….Was I going to buy it for you?

My thoughts echo back to me in the empty spaces you once filled. No one rehearses “missing” – it just comes, stealing the ink from the pen we hold. Inside jokes, knowing glances, and plans once spoken become a foreign language no one else can read. What does this do but add to isolation?

Or maybe, just maybe, the art of missing and yearning adds to the decoration of our soul, slowly absorbing the echo. Symbols and signs pop up around me, and I can either suppress them or allow them to tickle a memory and awaken my smile. Each day a smile brings familiarity a new song. In truth, love is truth. In love, pain and joy share an ultimate purpose. In this purpose, we learn the importance of a single day.

If yesterday were tomorrow would I love you differently today? No. No regrets. My only sadness would be greeting tomorrow without having fully lived today. For one day someone will miss me too, and my color in the world will absorb their loneliness as yours does mine. Yes, I will love you with all of me so in my moments of “missing” I will not have missed love itself.