Miss you still

 I haven't written anything for so long.  And I guess if I don't write today them I would probably be walking away from the blog forever.  So here I am.

This is a tradition I guess, trying to find words of wisdom to take the place of an in person celebration.  Holding on to cherished memories, afraid to lose one as another will never be able to take it's place.

But it would be your birthday.  You'd be 28.  When I wonder what your life would be like, I remember that 28 was when I finally had the job I really wanted, and I was starting to travel with work friends, always looking for the best postcards to send to you and your brother, hoping to plant seeds of places you would want to go early, so you'd get there earlier than I had.  So you'd go farther.  I remember still being oblivious --.charging through life without ever being aware how fragile it all is.  There's a happiness in that.  And I do imagine you happy, wherever your path would have taken you so far.

We are often surprised at where we end up.  But I always remember marveling at how much you were exactly who you were the very first time I met you.  So that's how I know you'd still have a smile that turned up just on one side when you were having a mischievous thought.  That you'd be fast to smile, and would have shed many tears because of that big, kind heart as well.  I think you'd have spent a lot of time with your Grandma this year, and I suspect you would have shared some of your mom's talents for organizing color and beauty.  You'd probably tease your brother in adulthood as much as you did back then, and counter your dad's humor with your own.  I think you'd still be in touch with all your old friends, and probably the center of activities in the place you had settled on as home.  I like to imagine that we'd have gone shopping in New York, and that once in a while you'd come hang out with your awesome Auntie, or that we'd go lay on a beach and feed all the stray animals for a week.  You'd light up the room for your uncles and Grandpa too, like you always did.

I bet you'd still love  lazy weekends in T-shirt and pajama bottoms.  I know you'd have a cat or three or four.  My music selection would be better with your taste, and how wonderful it would be to sit around and hear you laughing at stupid movies that are too terrible to be truly funny to me.  I know you'd still stay up crazy late and not mind falling asleep with the tv on, then sleep in late and wake up with crazy hair and a monosyllabic vocabulary for the first hour or two.   You'd still love animals.  And color. Talking to your friends.  Laughing about the obscure or the random path of a conversation.  There's so much I can never imagine, but I know most of these simple things would be the same.

Even as the weight of all the time without you adds up year over year, I can still feel my soul lighten just with the thoughts of the time we did have you.  And for everything year I wish was different, there are those precious 16 years that I wouldn't trade for anything.  Having you as my niece, even if only for 16 years, is worth a lifetime of sorrow.

Love you -- today, tomorrow, and always.