I was thinking over it the way I think of it at least once a week. The space of emptiness, the hunger that never quite ends. It is not nothingness because something is there. But it is insufficient.

It is more like emptiness since emptiness in me still has scraps or stains of your presence on the walls of my soul. I go into my fleeting memory and I get irritated immediately–I have to remind myself of all the things I have to be grateful for–but the irritations rise by grieving reflex.

I think of the hollowness that is a reminder of the mild surplus which was once. The laugh that was slight, hardly ever full, but that always made me laugh too. And I’ll never hear that laugh with these ears.

I’ll have to burrow into my recesses. I’ll have to sleep hard and pray for that dream that may still come. I have to mimic and try to be like you, in my laughter. I have to watch my brother’s face and see the muscles laying and stretching into the splendid image of you. I have to wait.

In a real way, I’ll hold that laugh for you. I’ll share other ones with other people at other moments, but there’s a laugh that’s just for you. I hope with all my imaginative, creative abilities that you’re spreading that meek joyfulness in eternity, amusing heaven and brightening angels’ eyes. I hope you’re having an amazing birthday.