i've been thinking of you tons as i get my grades back. i have one more left to get, but even this semester, i've managed to pull off a 4.0 so far, though i technically haven't gotten all of my grades. A in middle eastern history. A+ in essay writing. still waiting on spanish...but even without my spanish grade, i know you'd be proud. i constantly wish you were here so i could share my successes with you, little as they may be. i've told so many people how well i've done in school, in spite of the insanity this semester and the odds against me, and no one seems quite as excited as i am. i know you would be though. i just wish you were here to be proud. i wish you were here to give me advice on what the hell to do with my life after college, even if it means nagging me about how i should go to law school instead of gallivanting around the world aimlessly to places you probably think are too dangerous. i wish you were here to send me emails about the countries you don't want me to go to. i wish you were here to warn me about the rate of infectious diseases in ghana. i just wish you were here period. and god, it hurts so much.

i think of you when that Coolio song, "Ill See U when You Get Here," comes on, the one that you noticed in Atlantic City because it uses classical music.

the bottom line is, i miss you every second of every day. i am constantly reminded of you. everything is strange and foreign without you. nothing feels right and nothing feels the same. i can't get over how unfair this is. i'm doing better than i was, really trying to have a positive attitude, enjoy life, and appreciate what i have, but the moments i miss you sort of build up. in and of themselves, they're bearable, but after a while, my heart grows heavy with longing. i wish i'd had a more definitive conversation with you towards the end establishing that you were alright. my memories of you towards the end are of you not trusting us, telling us not to let anyone take you away, not to take away the house from you, not to kill you, etc. i know that that wasn't you, that it was the toxins in your brain making you paranoid, but i still can't shake these memories. i'm having trouble with them. i'm having trouble with the fact that you weren't ready to go and that you were so afraid of the end. i think of that morning when i woke up to see you stroking my mom, and i feel that perhaps that was the moment you started to come to terms with things. but by then you could barely speak. i just wish we had talked. i wish you had been able to tell us what you were feeling. i wish i had been braver and better and more attentive. most of all, i just wish you were here, still...and well. i wish this whole year hadn't happened. i wish that my typing all of these wishes out would actually make them come true. i wish that there is life after death, and that you know about my grades and you ARE proud of me still, even if you can't tell me so. just please, please let me see you again someday. i've never been patient, but i can manage to wait if i know we'll reunite. i want things to be OK, but how can they be when i miss you so much and when i want so badly to know if you are more than ashes scattered at sea?