Ryan, I love you and I miss you.

The person you would have been now. Four years is a long time, especially when we are young and discovering who we are and what we are destined for. I always knew you were destined for greatness, your legacy was something I could never have known. I envisioned growing old with you, a friendship that would endure anything. An unbreakable bond that distance and time would have no hold on.

Knowing you and loving you is one of my life’s greatest triumphs, losing you–the greatest tragedy. The world missed out on so much. Yet. We gained more than I could ever put into words. Ryan, I wish you knew just how important you were, are, and always will be.

I realize now why my heart lies in the mountains and why I find peace there. It was the last place I felt you. The morning you left this plane, the mountains and lakes served as the background to my grief. You came to me. I know you did. Almost as though you whispered goodbye to me whilst I stared into the grande landscapes of nature. Marveling at nature, and marveling at a great life at the same time.

In the time I knew you, you changed me, influenced me and bettered me more than people I’ve known my whole life. I had a lot of dreams wrapped up in you, and I realize now, my responsibility is to make those dreams come true for me, to honour you.

For the rest of my life there will be a piece that’s lonely. I’ve tried to fill it with music, writing and nothing ever overpowers that quiet. That ache of emptiness. It will always be there. As it should. You were too great a soul not to leave me with a permanent ache where our lives used to intertwine.

No words. No lyrics. No melody. Nothing can encompass the power and beauty that lies in the fact you existed, you were here in this time. In this world. That we were lucky to have known you. Of all the people in this planet, you shared your life with us…Nothing can encompass the beauty and power of that.

I know you’re waiting. Somewhere beyond the curtain we call the sky.