I exist. I exist. I exist.

If I told you that you'd share your death date with PT Barnum, would you have believed me? Henry Ford? Jesus Christ (allegedly)?
How about sharing that date with the anniversary of the symbolic birthday of the internet? The development of the WHO? The day we first confirmed a female black justice to the Supreme Court?
Would you have believed you'd never get to see that total eclipse that you were heading to see?
That it wouldn't be your love of smoking that killed you?
That you'd never live to see your 47th birthday?
That you'd die in Oxford, Ohio?

I'd been feeling off all week, something lingering in my world that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Sad at random songs. Wondering if it was weird eclipse energy.
4 hours before you died, I randomly had a Radiohead guitar riff that popped up in my head - No Surprises.
You loved Radiohead.
Was it a sign from the universe, letting me know in its own little way of what was to come?

I can't remember the last time I talked to you.
Did I ever let you know that you were important to me?
Did I ever tell you that I loved you and that I was glad that you were in my life?
Because I did, and I was.
And I probably never told you that.
And I didn't keep up that connection between us in the way I would have liked. And neither did you. And that's okay.

Sometimes the life that's easiest to live is the one that's right in front of you, not the one that's hundreds of miles away, in years past.

Death comes for us all, in its own way, in its own time. Expected. Unexpected. We all hope to die of old age in our homes, our beds, in our sleep. But not everyone gets that, in the end.

I'm gonna miss you until I take my own last breath, chaotropic.
Maybe we'll meet again someday, but even if that's not the eventuality, you were an amazing human and my life was better for knowing you.