For Alex

Grief is a strange thing. It doesn’t come in waves like people say—it comes in scenes. A knock on the wall. A skateboard under an arm. A cart rolling down the hallway, laughter echoing through the dorm. When I think of Alex, I don’t think of absence—I think of all the moments when he was there. They say to try not to dwell on absence—to focus on all the moments when he was present. But Alex, after almost a year without you, it's impossible not to feel your absence in the smallest things. I see it in the color purple, in the burger place you loved down the street, in the front porch of the house you were supposed to live in for your final year of college. I feel it most when I think about graduation. You should have been right next to me, our last names starting with “De” ensuring that we’d sit close enough to share a look, a smile, maybe even an inside joke as we turned our tassels to the left. It’s a moment we should have had together, but now, the only way I’ll see your face that day is by peaking at your prayer card that will be crossing the stage with me. I imagine you’d tease me for it, tell me I didn’t have to be so sentimental. But I also know you’d love it in your own way, just like you loved everything and everyone with a kind of sincerity that was rare.

Grief is a strange thing. It doesn’t get washed away with time like people say. I still catch myself talking about you in the present tense as if you never left. You are still in the groupchat with all our friends–not once did we think about making one without you. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that denying what happened is not going to bring you back. I remember when I had gotten my nails done a few days before the last day of the semester. They were supposed to be a wine red, but came out to be a deep purple. I hated them. You might have been biased because your favorite color was purple, but you loved them. At your funeral, I was still wearing the same nail polish you complimented a few days prior. Chipped, cracked, outgrown, I kept the polish on for as long as it remained on my fingertips because somehow, it felt like you were still here. Like as long as that color stayed, a part of you did too. I knew it was irrational, but grief makes you hold onto things in ways you never expect. I couldn’t bear to scrub it off, to let another piece of you fade away. Because even in the smallest, most insignificant details, you were still with me.

Grief is a strange thing. Some people say grief is about finding closure, about letting go. But I don’t want to let go. Maybe that’s the part people don’t tell you—grief isn’t just about moving on; it’s about learning to live with the loss, to make room for it in your heart without letting it consume you. I’m still learning how to do that, still figuring out how to carry the weight of this love and loss. I’m still learning that it is okay to be angry; it's okay to not follow a linear path of healing. Losing a best friend isn’t just about losing a person—it’s about losing the version of yourself that only existed because of them. You were the friend who never let me fall, whether it was on a skateboard or in life. You were the one who made me laugh when I needed it most, who turned ordinary moments into something worth remembering. I catch myself wanting to text you about something that happened during my day, but silence answers back. The world feels a little emptier without you in it. Yet I still see you in everything—woven into the people you brought into my life, in the laughter that still echoes in our shared memories, in the lessons you left behind without even realizing you were teaching them.

It’s hard to accept that the world hasn’t stopped for you. That people are still graduating, still going on with their lives like nothing has changed. That time keeps moving forward, even when it feels like everything should be frozen in the place where you left off. I think that’s the hardest part—to feel like you’re still standing in that moment while everyone else is continuing on. I catch myself feeling guilty for moving forward, for laughing, for feeling joy, as if it somehow betrays the memory of you. I keep waiting for life to stop for just a moment, to allow for a collective pause, a collective mourning. But life doesn’t work that way. And you didn’t either. You would be begging for me to find happiness, to continue on with my days and be with my friends as if you never left. Time marches on, no matter how hard it is to let go. And so, for you, I keep moving too. Sometimes slowly, sometimes reluctantly, but always forward, holding onto the memories of you as tightly as I can.