I miss you.

We didn't need to be best friends. You were a friend to anyone that knew you. You did some stupid shit. We all did. I wish you would have stayed.

I wish you would have stayed with us, and gone to college, and met a girl you'd love forever. I wish you'd experienced living in a dorm, playing hockey in college, and a thousand more memories with people you'll never see again.

I know you had to go. You couldn't stay. And yet, still, I wish you would have tried. Even if it was only a little harder, maybe that would have been enough.

You are so missed. I see it in everyone and everything, every day. I see it in your little siblings, your mother, and your father's memory. I see it in our friends, and the people who honor your memory despite their distance from your pain.

I can't pretend to know you better than they did. All I remember with you are superficial moments that made me smile. I'll never know the intimate workings of your mind and that's okay. That doesn't change the fact that you are one of the best people I know. Anyone that can make everyone smile as much as you did can't be anything other than special.

You were the light in a dark world. I think you still are. For a lot of people, I think you live on in a constant memory. Whether it's mat-ball in gym class, driving circles around a parking lot, or driving with your knees while blaring Miley Cyrus, or climbing a flagpole, or lighting a fire and cracking a beer...you will live on.

You're a poster child for the adolescence we're all grateful we experienced. It was better with you. I wish you would have stayed.

I wish when you asked for hugs on Tuesday that I wouldn't have taken for granted the fact I'd see you Thursday. I wish when my best friend called that I could have picked up the phone, so that I could have seen you one last time. I wish I'd known that where you went that night is where I'd work today. I wish we could have spent an infinity hanging out at annual class unofficial reunions instead of us meeting to mourn your memory. I wish you were out in the world, breathing, and lighting up other peoples' lives as you lit up ours. I wish Springsteen and Dirt Road Anthem weren't your songs, and that we could have spent the next fifteen years making more memories.

Most of all, I wish June 14th was just another day on the calendar instead of the anniversary of your death. These five years have been both incredible and unimaginable. I truly wish you had experienced them with us. I'd love to see where you would be now.

Still, the world is better off having known you. You touched a lot of people, and we will forever remember you. As you're approaching a 23nd birthday you'll never have, just know that we're all still rooting for you. Just know that I expect you're looking out for my daughter and hanging out with your dad, and when the time is right, I'll see you again. You are our angel, forever and always. It's easy to forget that, but it's never easy to forget you. Rest in peace, angel.