in honor of ryan

"my mind hears your voice in a thousand different places.
 my heart echoes with your laugh and makes me smile. 
my blood runs thru my veins carrying you inside its very cells. 
and i know that you are part of me.
i ache with missing you. 
yet i live with you inside of me.
and i hold you with every fiber of my being. forever and always."

just over a year ago he died.
a young man.
a young man who served in our military,
came home, and couldn't handle what was going on in his mind.
when our system failed to help him, he took his life.

looking for help...and getting lost in an overloaded, incompetent system,
he took his life.

we're all part of his story. and so many stories like his.

it's his birthday today.
his mom has flown across the country to be with her best friend on this day.
they will be getting thru the day together. she will be held. she will be loved.
and yet no one can touch that searing pain she'll carry forever.

so many stories like this all over the place.
what do we do?
how do we help?
how do we honor them?
how do we hold their mothers and their fathers?

what do we do on a birthday?

the only thing i have ever come up with and continue to come back to is
the thought that inspired the following bone sigh. i offer it today and ask
everyone to think about it, to think about your day today, to think of all
our youth we've lost to war, of our connections to them, and to be all that
you can be today.

in honor of ryan.


"weeping and aching, 
i longed to honor your passing.
 i longed to honor your life. 
searching everywhere,
 i found only one answer.
 honor myself.
 become all that i am. 
and carry you inside that beauty."