Whenever anyone asks me about love, my first real love, I always refer to you. You were my first actual love and I’ve realized there isn’t anyone who I’ve felt like this for. I always refer to you. Always. The first time I saw you, and how everything I felt seemed to change. The way my head, my heart, and my stomach felt when I first saw you was nothing I’ve experienced before. I’d say they were butterflies but the feeling was well beyond that. And that was just when we were young. We did everything together. We’d get to school and hangout before and during lunch and our little break we had after lunch. Every time it was cold out or snowed, I remember you’d hug me when we were outside all morning because you were so warm all the time. Or when your mum cut your hair and you dreaded showing me the next day on the way home from school. And who could forget the witty, clever jokes you made all day long about people who we didn’t like, or about the most random things. Or our first date. We went to see “The Karate Kid” starring Jayden Smith, you HATED Jayden Smith. (which I found hilarious). I remember the first time we held hands. It was a bizarre feeling. It was a very weird feeling but I liked it.
We were two people who hated everyone except each other. Sadly, we drifted apart within four years, but I still thought of you, every single day. I wondered how you were doing, how your life was going. I always checked up on your Facebook to see how your life was going. I never messaged you, I felt like I’d be a bother. We never actually broke up, we just went separate ways. You moved to a different school and I didn’t have any way to contact you until two years after you moved schools. Then I created a Facebook account, and found you and requested you as a friend. Almost immediately after sending the request, you accepted it. You were my first friend on Facebook, but I still never messaged you. I thought you hated me. In March of 2016, I saw a post saying the doctors found a tumor in your brain. Instantly, I messaged you and asked if you were okay. You explained that you were fine and that they didn’t know if the tumor was benign or cancerous.
A month later it was known that the tumor was cancerous. In my head, I thought “He’s got this, he can push through it.” Several radiation treatments and surgeries later, in October of 2016, your mum posted that you were put in hospice room 1 if anyone wanted to visit. Immediately I messaged you and asked if I could visit tomorrow, to which you instantly replied and said yes. I didn’t visit the next day because your mom said you were sick and asked immediate family visits only. So, the day after I came by when I walked in and saw you for the first time, I couldn’t compare that experience to anything else. I couldn’t transmit any form of emotion when I first saw you because it was as if nothing changed. I felt weird feeling these things for someone because they can’t be duplicated, or given to someone else. I fell in love with all the little things about you. So, I’m writing this to you. My first crush. My first kiss. The first person I held hands with. The first person I went on a date with. My first love. I didn’t realize you would be my only until right before the very end. When I had to hold the bucket when you got sick. When I held your hand while you were sleeping. When you allowed me to paint your nails dark red. When I spent 10 hours a day, every day by your side. From right when you woke up to right before you went to sleep. When I spent a few days at the hospice house with you. When I woke up in the middle of the night to get you a drink of milk because you couldn’t move.
These things are things I hold so close to my heart. And I cannot fathom how much these things mean to me. To know I stayed by your side through your most difficult journey. All I can make of this, is that I miss you. More than I thought was possible. I miss you when its pouring, I miss you when it’s a beautiful 80-degree day. I miss you when I’m sad and I miss you when I’m happy. I’m never truly happy, and I don’t think I’ll ever be until we meet again. I have happy moments, but never am entirely happy. And ive learned that that’s okay. I missed you yesterday, I miss you today, ill miss you tomorrow and ill miss you forever. Thank you for loving me, and I cannot wait to be with you again.
