Today you would have turned twenty one years old. You were so excited about this. I remember last year when we went to see Switchfoot you were telling me that next year we would be going out.

It's almost one year ago today that you and I sat in our seats at the amphitheater and watched Gavin Degraw, Bowling For Soup, Ryan Cabrerra and then Switchfoot. I know that you had barely heard of Switchfoot and the others were completely foreign and we so fell in love didn't we? Two days later we had every BFS song downloaded and burned to cd. They sang a song called Belgium and we just took that as a sign that we were supposed to be there since that is where you are from.

And we froze our asses off. It was so cold. We each had on two pairs of pants and at three shirts and sweaters under our jackets. We were totally huddled together and having the best time.
It wasn't supposed to be the last present I gave you. That concert was not supposed to be the last thing I gave you for your birthday.

You always got me things. For my birthday, for Christmas, for Mother's day. I never felt like gave you enough. That first year that you and I were friends, you gave me a candy apple candle for Mother's day and it touched me so much that you had thought of me on that day. That is how our friendship was to me all of the time. I always felt so lucky to have you in my life. You were always there when I called. You always listened, you always cared. I don't know how you came to be such a great person in such a short amount of time.

You've been gone for 323 days. Three hundred and twenty three days, one hour and forty one minutes. And not one of them has passed without my heart aching for you. I think about you every day. I wonder what you would think about everything. Would you have liked my outfit? Would you have laughed at Triniti? Would you have called me at 2am after your latest date? Would you have let me wake you up for school at 7:30am on my drive to work by recounting the previous night again? Would you think I am becoming a better person?

You would have been here now. You would be going to another concert with me on the fifteenth this year. We would be Christmas shopping and baking cookies like we did last year.
Your mom would still smile like she smiled a year ago when she picked you up to go out to dinner with your grandparents. I wish she still smiled like that. I want so badly to take all of that sadness from her face. She misses you so much. Sometimes I think she is the only person in the world who knows how I feel when I think of you.

Twenty one. God. I still have a hard time believing that you were only twenty. You had so much life in you, so much love, so much compassion and you gave it all to everyone without expecting a thing back. In less than twenty one years, you touched so many people, so many lives. You had this light in you that I could never explain as anything more than just pure goodness. You never wanted anything bad for anyone and you did everything you could to help other people. In just twenty years you touched so many lives. It wasn't fair that you had to leave so soon.

I wish you were here.
Happy Birthday honey.

I love you and you are missed so much more than you could have ever known.
~K