Everywhere I Go

Cardboard Dreams & A Box of Twine

Everywhere I go there are reminders of you.
Baseball cards for sale on a counter.
Memories of you as an innocent young boy.
Happily playing with cardboard dreams.

Your room holds all your childhood treasures still.
A little man carved out of wood.
A crazy drawing with a rabbit.
Magic cards, buttons and twine.
Nana's stories about you and Mr. Tim SunnyBear.

Your room holds the story of your journey from boy to man.
Your books from college.
All those years spent studying for your degree.
Pictures of Pip and Nana, your Dad and Shu-sha.
Pip's ties and your first real suit hang in the closet.
A tool chest full of things you might need to fix something
sits under your bed.

So many books.
All the things you wanted to learn.
Your mind was never idle.
Bracelets from Ecuador.
And hats...lots of hats.
Music is everywhere.
Your guitars stand in the corner, forgotten and alone.
Do they miss you like I do?

Everywhere I go I find pieces of you.
A box full of twine, all wrapped up neat and tight.
When I found that box I cried and I closed it back up.
I couldn't throw that away. Not yet. Not now.
That was just you.
Like the time you took the strap on my ipod case and you
wrapped into a nice neat circular thing that still hasn't come apart.
If only I could have wrapped you to me like that,
would you still be here with me now?

Everywhere I go there are reminders of your leukemia and the battle
we fought so hard for so long.
Your gray scarf lies on your pillow.
It was just a scarf until you had to use it to shield your eyes from
the harsh light of hospital ceilings and
the harsh reality of the surreal world of cancer.
Thermometers lying about like fallen soldiers in our lost war.
A gallon size fortress of medicine bottles at the top of the stairs.

Everywhere I go I am reminded that you are gone.
You are not in your room, or with your friends, or at work.
You are not anywhere that I can find you.
Candles are burning around what remains of your physical body.
The rosary you held in your hands each night at the hospital is there too.
The blanket given to comfort you sits idle and with no purpose.
Your pictures remind me of what has been lost.
Your eyes, so sad and wise, pierce my heart.

Everywhere I go I see young men that are now the age
That you should been.
I wonder where they are going.
What they are doing with their lives?
I wonder what you would be doing with yours.
I wonder what things we would be doing together.
I wonder what it would be like to hear you say,
"I love you Mom" just one more time.

Everywhere I go the pain of losing you grows deeper
This dark spot needs to be cut out.
Like a piece of rotting fruit
I don't think this one can be saved.

© bigD 2011