it's been ten years! a decade. and do you know that not a single one of them has passed without me remembering your kindness. i don't forget it.
at first i thought i saw a reason in your friendship with him. i looked in the house you shared. i looked for a few things there. i was wrong about all of them.
you were kind to me and i was a stranger. an UTTER stranger, one with zero ties to you nor the roommate with whom, it took me years to realize, you had nothing in common. i was not on the ground; i was a wisp of the wind. i was floating down the river. i held on to nothing.
i saw your face. you walked toward me in a big puffy coat and sneakers you'd thrown on without socks because he'd told you i was here and asked if you could come. and then you drove me around to nowhere and we waited and we talked.
you did this for a stranger who could not be more lost.
and OH - it was never because of your roommate. it was your heart. kindness.
since that day ten years ago little pieces of you float to me. fragments of grief. you became a widower and single dad, unimaginable. fragments of light. you created a new family, insuppressible.
i ran for him, never looking down, and it was you who touched my life.
