Dear Jeff...

I was told over a year ago to do this. I have thought about it a lot. As I begin I am not even sure that I can finish. I am sure this will not be completed in one sitting. 

You knew how much I loved to write and you saw so much of it. You also saw when I stopped. I could not even count the amount of times you had asked if I had been writing. You even got me a special notebook and pencils. I stared at it for over a year. 

My life will never be the same without you. You were going to be my partner in old age. We were both so strange in many of the same ways. I can hear your laugh, I can hear your excitement and passion when you talked about conspiracies and issues. 

You were my late night texting buddy, the person I could be honest with in all of my ugliness. Jeff, there really will never be another you. I always thought at some place over the rainbow we would find ourselves together. Either one of us or both of us were not adding up at the same time. 

I lost you and you held the deepest place. It is not just a hole, I just know that will never happen again. I will never connect like that again. That was my time and that time is gone. I was a horrible alcoholic mess leading up to your death. I knew you were distancing yourself from me, I was hard to deal with, hard to see like that. 

I got home from rehab and I found out the next day you had died. 

You know I was always telling you that I loved you all of the time. Sometimes you would say it back but usually not. I did not need you to say it. 

The year you died I remember very specifically you said that you know I always said it, you were sorry that you do not reply, but that you wanted me to know how much you loved me and what I meant to you. I remember being in my kitchen when I got that text. 

We were kinda hot and cold there to the end for several reasons. I wish I could tell you just one more time how I felt about you. I wish I was not such a drunk sabotaging my life and taking time away from our friendship. 

I have so many regrets and now the brutal truth is it's all too late. I got sober too late, I did not realize that you were at risk yourself. I knew what you were doing, I just did not see it like it was. I wish I could believe in life after death and that I will see you again. I cannot believe in it just to soothe myself. Dust to dust.