Box

I'm getting closer and closer to graduating. I have good stressors and bad stressors., but nothing paralyses me more than when I realize I will never see your face again.

The visor in my car has three pictures in it. The first is of you and I our junior year. It was taken by my parents in a church. You had been in appropriately touching me moments before they took the picture. Your face is one of concern and surprise and mine is of joy and laughter. That is the photo I usually see. When I see it I laugh because you look so surprised.

The second photo is of us again. This time it's senior year right after the talent show. I'm holding onto you for dear life and you have your arm around me. You're wearing a bed sheet tied around your neck like a cape. You're a super hero. You're my super hero.

The third picture is not of you- it's of the trifecta. Me and my two closest girl friends. It is graduation day. We had just been playing soccer while waiting to walk down the isle and finish our highschool experience. I had given you a scrap book that you had put into a box a long with something for me "to discover in years to come". After the ceremony we took that box to our spot in the woods and buried it with the hope of finding it at a reunion one year. I never went to a high school reunion. You went every year.

When I went to the north for your service, I stopped at our high school first. Through feet of snow I dug. Trying to find that god damn box. It's gone. Or I've forgotten where we left it. I think you took it. I think you had that box. I remember hearing that while you were a dean you'd disappear to the woods every once in a while. I hope you had it.