Her Voice
When there is always a lot, it can be rare to find quiet moments. I found one this evening. The lights off, sounds of life around me but not near me. It was tranquil and I wanted to stay there. To not have to do anything, but just be. It was calming for a while, but then I looked for your voice. I tried as hard as I could to remember what you sounded like when you spoke, when you laughed. I can picture it. When we played cards in the basement at the lake. That was a week before your voice would be lost to the world forever.
It was a voice that loved me. A voice that called to me and corrected me, but also comforted me. A voice that so often carried me from dark places, most of them inside myself. When I needed you, you were there, until he ended it. How many times did we sit on the top step and talk about life? Too many to count. I looked up to you. I knew that you had grown and healed in ways that I deeply longed for but never felt I deserved. You wanted that for me too. You wanted to teach me because you saw things in me that I did not see in myself. You would be proud of me and not for my degrees or accomplishments, which keep coming, but for the woman I have become. For the ways I have still found some healing, even without you, and the healing I want to bring to the world, just like you did.
I do not think a day will come when I don’t look for you in some way. It’s like the world is not right, because you should be here. I should be able to pickup the phone, to call you and hear your voice. Instead, sometimes the only place I find you is here in the pain of having lost you.
Amanda Carrasco 