“I am not gone.

Not really. I haven’t left you, not in the ways that truly matter.

Close your eyes, and you will find me there, in the way your heart still knows mine.

I have not gone far.

I’m just beyond the veil of what you can see.

And what’s absence after all but a trick of the eye?

I am not where you can reach me anymore but I am where you can remember.

Do not let grief turn my name into something heavy. Something you can’t speak without feeling the weight of loss in your chest.

Let my name stay light. Let my name live on in moments when you laugh, when you love.

You don’t have to let me go, just carry me differently.

Lightly. Gently.”

@ R. K. Nightingale ©