It’s weird to think that something so little could mean so much. This plush flannel bear is a reminder to me every day that you’re not here. The blue, white, and grey stripes that crisscross to make up a piece of fabric, a shirt, your favorite shirt. A shirt that I never got to see you in one last time. With every look, I get a stare back with the dark black eyes that just somehow know how much I miss you. 

I remember walking into the funeral home. There was a lot of weight in the air and I was nervous. You had lost over 80 pounds since the last time I saw you and I honestly didn’t want to really look at you. Remembering those big bear hugs and looking at your tiny, frail body was unimaginable. It was a lot for me to even glance at you. You were always this tall, strong man on the outside with a soft and caring inside that outshone even when you didn’t want it to. It’s weird too because the thing that made me cry when I did finally take one last look at you was your fingernails. 

The creaky, rusty, old swing on the back porch will always be a safe place for me. A place where I can sit alone and not only have peace and be to myself but also with you. The porch was a safe place where its wide-open view of the chaotic city and its bright lights gave us such a calm but scenic view. Sitting on the swing for hours at a time just talking or just sitting in each other's presence. Every creak was a risk that everything would come crashing down at once. And it did eventually, just it wasn’t the swing but losing you. You broke before the swing and I don’t blame you.

However, things will be new and strong and bold but eventually, grow old into the cracked and weak. You watched me grow up but I’ll never see you grow old and even though I would’ve eventually lost you later and it would’ve hurt just as much, maybe even more, I still wish that there was even a minute more where I could’ve seen you, talked to you, or even just been in your presence. Your bear will forever remind me of you and the time we had together but also the time we won’t have. There are a lot of wishes I have but wishes aren’t reality and reality doesn’t have you in it. Goodbye doesn’t always mean forever, I just wish I got to say it because for you it was.