August 27th

Today my mind is with the passing of Stephen, 16 years ago, still seeming as if it was yesterday I received the dreaded call as the sun was beginning to rise over the Arizona Mountaintops, early on that Saturday morning. My confidant, friend and partner in crime as we 'tooled' around the Northern California area, I know he watches and awaits my arrival, often easing my mind and keeping the what if's at bay and yet although time has passed, the pain has never gone away.

The memories cherished, the friendship thought and known as sacred and the spirit felt in my everyday, knowing that although I tried to be the best friend possible, knowing today what I did not know then, I could have done and been so much more as I now understand what its like, what he himself endured as I struggle through my life's journey, his cut much shorter for reasons that today would keep him alive, vibrant and an envy to many he came into contact with, called home too early, but ready, as his spirit flourished
and will continue as long as I am breathing...

Promises made,
promises kept
as time continues to tock and tick, wondering, but not too often, what he might look like today, how life would have been different, a teacher of many things, powerful in his own right, never finding one to speak of him in an ill will. A model to define life fulfilled even in a short period of time and a sense of awareness of the hereafter never seen on that level before nor since...