she is quite wonderful

Sweetness is like sand.

Through your fingers and onto your toes. Little pebbles that turn into delicate piles, forming here and there. And then, all of the sudden, you think it's gone. But that's not the case, really. You find it in the most unexpected places. In-between your sheets and on the baseboards. Your shoes. Everywhere, even. All over the god-damned place.

A very dear person we know has passed away. Or, perhaps, she is in the middle of it all as she continues to give herself to others. In the process of one place to the next.

But neverthemind.

The point of the matter is we cannot see her.

We cannot hear her.

No new challenges between you and one of us to be meted out over time. She belongs to something else. And we all want to see her again. A whole big lot.

Sarah.

The nexus of my life is you, and I had no idea until I came home Monday and looked around the space I see everyday. And the life I have. All that is here. Everything from the walls around me to the person I kiss goodnight. In some way, it all connects to you.

I don't know if this was the way you wanted it to be; that everyone would be so affected by your "you." But you did it.

There was some point over the last two days when I was walking and thinking about what I would say. I'm sure there were some poignant things, crafted in such a way to make me seem on the inside of it all. I knew you when she knew you when and everybody knew you. That's just not the way it was. But you made me feel like I mattered.

Sarah, sweetest darling girl.

You gave me more than you probably planned.

I'm public hiding behind a private me, or perhaps its the other way around. Whichever way I was you turned me inside out. You flipped it all so wherever I thought I had landed, really it was someplace else. And that place was so good. There were concerts and parties and dinners. Friends that last. And there were moments between you and "the him" who is mine that I get to share. Twins games underneath the covers. Frozen candy bars and bad teen pop. Jesus, Sarah. You gave me a history of the person I'll be with forever. You gave him a past that isn't high school.

We have had the Family Room. A condensed version of life with stories and muffins and fruit and homemade truffles. These times of immense intense, vivid memories, plucked sharply with silence and tears that just won't end. A word or two will set us off into a sobbing jag, where we need a shoulder even though we don't want it. I want to be with everyone at all at once, I just want to be alone, too.

There is so much love for you. Abounding and amazing. Profound and everlasting.

Whatever happens after all of this, you know it now. Before any of us.

Sarah, everyone is very sad.

If you could do one last thing. If you could give us a moment to transcend the days in the Family Room. Where we see you smiling and saying something we would quote later when telling a story of Sarah to each other. Putting your hand just barely to your mouth in a faux "shocked" way of being, more for effect than for anything. If you could just give us one more moment of you, I think we would make it to wherever we need to be much sooner than we probably will.

As it is, all we have is each other. It is intense and important to be here. As good as it can be. I love to tell you all that I love you. I love that it is ok to say those words.

But Sarah, it would be better with you here.

It would be so good with you. To tell you that we love you.

He and I; we just said good-bye, and didn't say we would miss you.

No regrets. But for the record, the missing lasts forever. The whole life long.

The sweetness piles up between our toes. We will build a castle right on the part of the shore where it wears away slowly. One wave at a time.