“Every morning I still wake up and the first thing I want to do is see your face.”

I have so much to say, and yet so little. My mind feels so far away today. I’ve been told today will be worse than tomorrow. It’s difficult to tell. I’ve dreaded this week, dragged my feet hoping it wouldn’t come while concurrently wishing it would just be over already. Sometimes waiting is the worst part. It holds you in place, keeps you locked until your time is called so you can finally begin moving forward.

I have wanted to write so much these past few weeks. I wish I had a better excuse for not, but to be honest I have just been so tired. Cecilia, school, and just getting myself up every morning out of bed without him takes every ounce of strength and energy I have. So often I find myself reciting thoughts I would like to capture on paper, to write and share. Yet by the time I get time to do it, the thought of typing anything feels like climbing a mountain with 100 pounds on my back. I feel so weighed down.

I can still feel him. I can see him when I close my eyes, feel his love and warmth. It doesn’t feel possible that he has been gone for one year. That in less than 24 hours I will no longer be able to say “last year Nate and I were doing this together…” I have a voicemail from him on March 31st last year. I have listened to it over and over and over again. His voice sounds so familiar still, like it was yesterday. I miss him. I miss everything about him. In so many ways it feels like he has only been gone for 10 seconds. And yet it feels like 100 years.

I recently turned 26. I feel so more like 62. So tired, so heavy, so old. Too much has happened for me to only be 26. I don’t like turning a year older while he will forever remain frozen in time, his face never aging past 24. And then I see Cecilia’s face. And how much she has grown, how much she looks like him. I cannot express into words how wonderful she is to me, how much of a gift I was given through her. She truly is my light.

There is so much I want to share, so many thoughts on life, love, death, faith, etc… but I simply do not have the words, nor the energy today. As I allowed myself time to grieve alone this morning I began to finally read through the dozens of letters Nate wrote me. How blessed I am that he should leave such a lasting memory of his love for me! It is not without coincidence that I opened the following letter first; for even after death he always knows the right thing to say.

25 March 2013

Dear Jen,

This morning I found out that an old classmate of mine has died. I was never very close to him, but we did become friends in middle school when we were both into skateboarding and football.

As these kind of things are wont to do, the news made me think of my own life and death. One of my biggest fears is not dying so much as it is leaving my loved ones uncertain, be it about my affections for them, things I may have said to or about them, or even the state of my own soul. When I die, I want my friends and family – and you especially – to know that I left this world in God’s friendship and so await you in heaven for when your own time should come.

And as I thought about this, it struck me that the only way to pass on such assurance (to myself not least of all) is to love radically at every moment. For death does not pre-announce itself, not for most people at least. What a terrible thing it would be to die after an argument with you or after sinning against God! To die unreconciled is surely the worst thing that can happen to anyone. I must continue drinking from the source of love Himself if I am to become a flowing spring to others. Please pray that God will teach me how to love like Him. I love you.

Love, Nate

Let us all remember to have faith and love like Nate.

Jennifer Trapuzzano