Never Complete

Day 923.

En route to Austin with Adam and George to celebrate Greg’s 40th.

We are going to watch the Moto GP bike race.

Yes, Luke should be here. There’s partying and motorbike racing - he should be here.

We are never complete.

There is always someone missing.

It will always be so.

But some moments, the sound of Luke’s absence is deafening.

This is one of those times.

We remember Luke at his best.

At his best everything would be better with him.

The missing made all the harder for that.

BUT in truth that has not always been so.

Allowing the memories of the bad days too, I remember the Christmas lunch that tasted bad.

He had tummy troubles, the anxiety of him not coming home in a timely fashion for events, like a flight, running late, chaotic.

Is he carrying drugs?

His fractious behavior, and the ups and downs.

My love is pushing and straining past these black moods, seeking to envelop the true Luke within, to calm and comfort, cutting my heart on the thorns of his lashings en route.

Always adjusting, always ready, always fearing.

It would color a trip like this.

And although I do not miss that behavior, I do, deeply and ferociously, miss him and wish with all that I am, that he was here.