Aaron was my best friend. More than a brother, he was the one person who knew me better than anyone else—our inside jokes, the way we could finish each other’s sentences, the games we played as kids. And that song. We played it together every single summer, no matter how much we argued or fought. It was our tradition, the one thing we always did, the one thing we never let go.
The day I lost him was the day the music stopped. It wasn’t just the sound of his laughter that vanished—it was everything that made life feel light and full of possibility. Suddenly, the world seemed so much quieter, colder. The weight of his absence was unbearable, like a part of me had been ripped away, never to return.
For weeks, I couldn’t even bring myself to listen to the music we loved. The silence seemed less painful than hearing the song without him beside me. But one evening, as the sun began to set, I sat in the backyard, the same place we had spent so many hours together. The wind carried a faint tune through the trees, and I found myself humming the melody.
Without thinking, I picked up my guitar—the one Aaron had always borrowed and joked about breaking—and began to play the song. It felt strange, playing it alone, but then I remembered something he used to say: “We don’t stop playing just because the world changes. We keep playing, even if it’s just for us.”
The first notes were shaky, the strings a little out of tune, but as I kept playing, the sadness started to lift, just a little. I could almost hear him beside me, strumming his part, laughing at my mistakes, telling me to stop pretending I was a rock star. And for the first time since he passed, I wasn’t drowning in grief. I was remembering him, and in remembering, I found a small piece of peace.
**Final Thought**:
Grief doesn’t make us forget. It teaches us to carry the love we shared, the moments we had, and the strength we found together.
