Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If there is one thing I am sure life has taught me well, it is this: how to miss someone. To suddenly stop in the middle of the street because of the timbre in someone else's voice, the quality of a stranger's laugh, makes me remember.

To welcome the sudden pain that comes with a song on the radio, or to avoid certain songs altogether.

To look for the familiar face in a crowd, knowing the odds but searching still. Or to find bits and pieces in everybody, everywhere: the profile on this one, the hair on that one, the eyes on another.

To linger in familiar places and relive little episodes, and finding all the excuses to do this over and over and over.

That special feeling of sudden loneliness at odd hours of night or day

To re-run over and over bits and pieces of scenes in my mind, and rage against a feeble memory that blurs all else until only generalized feelings and moods, not images, remain.

Yes, I have been there.

And I have become an expert at the remedies, too.

Trying everything and anything to give myself a moment of peace: drink (helps but only till the next morning, smoke (here, physical pain replaces the emotional one and is just as bad), read (repeat until you doze off: nothing is permanent), listen to unfamiliar music (to something else other than the one playing in mind).

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. - Maya Angelou

And then I read, or someone once said, or maybe it was in a movie, that the pain of missing someone is a good thing. that it is the tangible proof that the feeling for that special someone is real. That one would rather have that if that is the only thing one can have.

If there is one thing I am sure life has taught me well, it is this: missing someone should not make me sad, nor make me get stuck just sitting and waiting. Nor make me qualified for self-pity.

I would like to think it is a sign of hope. Something to look back fondly on when the days get unbearable, and something to look forward to, to work for, when there is nothing left.

No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees. - Carole Borges
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The above is something that I wrote a while ago after Jodi died. I thought it time to make the post a public one.

My friend Jamie Klassen along with her boyfriend Jordan Fehr, and his sister Brittney died last night in a car accident due to bad weather condidtions. They were all driving home from a missions trip in Mexico.

I know what I wrote, but it is so hard believing it.

Oh my sweet Jesus.