What gets me the most aren’t the grand milestones or the dramatic moments. It’s the small, boring, completely ordinary memories that now feel like sacred artifacts. I’ll be walking through the grocery store, and I’ll catch the smell of pine-scented cleaner, and instantly I’m back in your garage. I can see you wiping down your rifle, the rag moving in slow, practiced circles. I can hear the soft click of the safety, the way you’d hum off-key to some classic rock station playing on a staticky radio. We weren’t doing anything important. We were just getting ready for a weekend hunt, talking about absolutely nothing—engine parts, bad movies, the weird noise my truck had been making. But those moments? They echo through my life now louder than any concert or celebration ever could.

I miss the hunting trips the most, I think. There was something about the quiet of the woods before sunrise that just made sense when we were together. We’d sit in the blind, breath visible in the cold air, thermoses of black coffee between us. You’d always pack too many snacks, complaining that I never brought enough, while I’d roll my eyes and pass you a granola bar. We’d watch the tree line, mostly in silence, but it was never an awkward quiet. It was the kind of silence that only exists between people who truly know each other. No performance, no pretending. Just two friends sharing space, waiting for the world to wake up.

And then there were the evenings. God, the evenings. After we’d pack up the gear, we’d drag those folding chairs around to the fire pit. You’d crack open a beer, hand me one, and we’d just sit there as the flames danced. Sometimes we’d smoke, watching the embers rise and vanish into the night sky. We’d talk about everything and nothing. We’d argue about sports teams that didn’t matter, debate the best way to cook venison, and laugh until our sides hurt over stories that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. I’d give anything to be back in that chair, listening to your voice cut through the crackle of the fire. I miss the way you’d lean back, stretch your arms out, and say, “Man, this is the life,” like we’d somehow figured out the secret to happiness. We hadn’t. We were just young, free, and completely unaware that time was ticking down.

I can’t forgive the fact that the future we casually talked about will never happen. We’d joke about growing old, about buying land next to each other, about teaching our kids how to track deer and build a proper fire. We’d make plans for trips we never booked and conversations we never finished. Those unwritten chapters feel like a physical weight some days. I keep waiting for you to text me about a new hunting spot, or to call and complain about the weather, or to show up at my door with a six-pack and that familiar, lopsided grin. But the phone stays quiet. The chair stays empty. The fire burns down to ash.

People tell me you’re in a better place, or that time heals all wounds, or that I should try to “move on.” But I don’t want to move on from you. I want to carry you with me. I want the memories to keep echoing, even if they ache. Because those echoes are proof that you were here. That we mattered. That the late nights, the early mornings, the shared cigarettes, the cold beers, the stupid jokes, and the comfortable silences were real. They were ours. And no amount of time can take that away.

So here I am, a year later, still standing in the footprint of your absence. I’ll keep hunting. I’ll keep sitting by the fire. I’ll keep pouring two cups of coffee sometimes, just out of habit. And I’ll keep talking to you, even if it’s just in my head, because letting go was never the assignment. Remembering you was. And I’ll do it for as long as I’m breathing.

Miss you, brother. Always.