Happy Sweet 16

Today, Charlie would have been 16 years old.

The worst part about this long-term, lifelong grief is I don’t know what that would be like. I see his friends as they grow up, and how puberty and time is changing their faces and bodies. You can see the babies and toddles and little boys they were in the young men they are becoming. But I cannot extrapolate that to Charlie.

Would he be tall? I think so. He was always on the tall end of the scale for his age. Probably still skinny, especially if he stayed on his ADHD medicine which played havoc with his appetite. I know his eyes would be as beautiful a brown and his hair dark. I hope his smile would still have been wide and lovely, mischievous and open.

But I don’t know. I know he struggled with the darkness inside him, and being wired differently. He was so self aware, and he hated that his brain just wouldn’t do what he wanted it to do. How would that have affected his outlook? I like to think we would have continued to find ways to help him, to teach him how to cope–to support that enormous intelligence and creativity.

I don’t know who he would be. He was just a bundle of potential, and I don’t know the paths he would have taken. It is a regret and pain that grows with every day that ticks by, every day he isn’t here–a fresh pain that comes from being left with nothing but moments trapped in amber, growing more distant. Time is a bitch.

I wish he were here. I wish I could hug him and know the amazing 16 year old he would have been. But unlike time, wishes and regrets do nothing and affect nothing. Time ticks on without him. And I miss him.