Nineteen

Nineteen.

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I wonder who you would be at nineteen?

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What your voice would sound like now?

What you’d be doing?

Where you would be in life?

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I wonder if that cheesy grin would still show up before your punchline.

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I wonder about all of it.

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Today there should be nineteen candles on your cake.

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Instead, today nineteen arrives without you.

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It’s not freaking fair…the years keep coming, yet when I think of you, it will always be in a world where you are sixteen.

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Tonight, you won’t blow out candles…but your light continues on.

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It lives in every person who still says your name.

Every story told about you.

Every memory that still makes us laugh.

Every flash of orange.

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So tonight we will do what we’ve learned to do instead.

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We’ll light up the night in remembrance and celebration of you.

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Happy 19th, P.

Oh, how I wish I got the chance to know the nineteen year old you.

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I love you, buddy.

xo,

Auntie

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