life goes on

I dreamt of Dario last night.

We sat together in a forest clearing at the dead of night, at a round wooden table. His face was illuminated by the glow of my computer, which he used to check his facebook page, just like I did, many times over in the days after he died.

There he was, reading the tributes people have left, smiling at some, laughing at others. Sometimes saying: "I didn't even remember I 'ad 'im as a friend."

It was the most normal thing in the world.

"I can't believe you're stuck with picture of you in your chef's uniform kissing the pig's head as your profile picture," I told him. And amazingly, we both laughed.

It felt so good to be laughing with him again.

I tried to ask what things were like for him now. But his face clouded over. He wouldn't talk to me about it.

"But I miss you so much," I told him. "Won't you just tell me how you are? How are you coping with all this?"

"I'm gone, tesoro," he said. "I'm fine, you gotta let it go. Life goes on. How are you coping with this? That's what you gotta ask."

Evetything else is just fragments. My hands on the table, engagement ring sparkling in the moonlight. Birds in the trees, watching and waiting. "You have to go soon, don't you?" and "this isn't real, is it?"

How are you supposed to cope with the end? When it grabs you by the hair at strange moments during the day and pulls so spitefully?

I've shut it out of my life for so long. It never even occured to me till recently, that all this is so very temporary.

Trying to live with it, though it sits badly- like co-existing with a new flatmate you instantly take a dislike to.

Just because bad things happen doesn't mean they'll happen to me, or the people I love. But saying that is easier to believe it.

But I must. A life lived in fear is not much to shout about.

Because life does go on. And when you have bad dreams you wake up and put them away. Wash them down the plughole with the shower water.

Get dressed, take the dog out as normal, and feel the warming light of the morning sun on your face. Look at the sky- is it not more beautiful because he is up there somewhere?

And if you're lucky, stop in front of a tree, and evesdrop on an unseen bird heralding the coming of the new day. A sweet sound, a music far purer than man can ever make with his machines.

Because life goes on, and today everything feels different.

Or at least that's what you want to believe.

Goodbye dear friend, addio

The world has changed. Colours are less vivid and sounds are duller. There's no place for the sun or the stars - much better a lightless sky or a rainy day.

The world has changed because you're not in it anymore.

It just doesn't seem right that things go on as before, as if nothing has happened. The alarm still sounds in the morning. Kids still laugh on the bus and lovers still kiss in the street. None of them know that you are gone.

That day just passed in a blur. A marker between before and what replaced it. Phone clasped to my ear, shaking in the street. Half from cold and half from something else. Hands pressed to my face in the toilets, holding it all in - strange emotions never felt before, coming in 9ft waves, drowning, drowning.

I know in time I'll be able to remember you without pain and with dry eyes. The good times, and just you - your punk way of viewing the world, your stubbornness. Your kindness and your wide smile, always there no matter what.

I'd like to say you were too good for this world, that's why you had to go. But you'd never let me get away with that, and you'd remind me of all the mischief you used to cause. The time you spat on the door handle of a police car, and how we laughed thinking about the expression on his face when he came back and opened it.

Memories will bring comfort. But it doesn't seem fair that that's all I have now. I'll never see you again, never hear you say, "Ciao, tesoro". Never be able to cook for you like I said I would, never be able to give you back your dear dad's scarf - the surprise that I knew would mean so much.

You'll not be at my wedding, though I can't bring myself to remove your name from my invite list. And you'll never meet any children that I might have. You'll never be a day older than 35.

One day soon I will think of you and smile. But until then I can't quite manage to walk with my head held up high.

Addio Dario, my dear friend. Love you always. You have left such a hole. Not just in my life, but many others - you can see that just by looking at the hundreds of messages left on your Facebook. We'll all miss you so much.

I thought you'd be in my life forever. Can't believe I was wrong.