I’m ready to tell more stories about you. Open the box and unpack the memories. 

Sorry, it’s taken until now. I was afraid. Still am. 

It hurts when I talk about you. Giving voice to your absence, the loss, somehow makes it feel more real. 

That’s the point, I guess. 

Reliving the past, remembering you out loud. It renews the memories—all the things I’m starting to forget.

But I’m not sure where to begin. I’ve been avoiding this for so long… 

~

Cancer took you more than 10 years ago. 

I’ve been running ever since. From grief and toward anger. From the lazy, irresponsible young man. The person I was when you left this world.

What I’m really running from is regret. I wish you could see me now. You’d be proud.

You always believed in me. In everyone. Because you believed in second chances.

You were gentle, almost innocent. You were good. Beautiful, inside and out. 

And you were silly. So silly. You loved to play games and to laugh. You loved to sing all the wrong words to all your favourite songs. 

You loved your family.

We loved you.

You were call number one after I moved out. When I was sick, sad, scared. Whatever. Your voice was a source of comfort. 

And authority. 

Remember that time you caught my friends and me drinking in the backyard? 

You rarely swore or shouted, but you spoke as eloquently as ever that night:

“Get inside before I rip your fucking head off!” 

You were so mad. A giant force at only four foot eight. 

A force with a frightening case of arachnophobia. (Sorry about that time at the cottage, when I put the dead dock spider on your arm.)

Dad sold the place, by the way. I know you understand why.

But Grandma’s cottage is still there. I was up recently and thought of you. Remember my first fishing rod? 

You taught me how to cast. And when the handle broke on the reel, you fixed it by replacing the knob with a miniature G.I. Joe action figure.

I wish I could have fixed you. Healed you.

But life doesn’t work that way. And it moves forward whether we want it to or not. 

Maybe that’s what this is about: moving forward. 

Much of what I do is for you. To live up to the person you believed I could be. To be better than I was yesterday.

To live with purpose and honour—move with life, not against it. To cherish each breath.

There are still so many things I want to say. So many memories to resurface. 

When the words come to me, I won’t keep them inside anymore. 

Promise.