I never really understood it. Because the truth of the matter is, I never really knew you. I wish I had, now, when your absence, the vacuum of you, leaves room for things like regret, like recollection, like an oddly misplaced sense of nostalgia. I wish I knew you better.
But my earliest memory of you isn't anything concrete. It's more a feeling; a detail, perhaps -- you smiling, in that quiet way, a friendly word, an incomprehensibly genuine warmth. I never really knew you, and yet I remember these things about you. Of you suddenly just being there, and treating me not as some intimidating upperclassman (of which all upperclassmen seemed to be back then, however unlikely) nor a complete stranger (of which technically I was), but as someone you felt like you'd known forever.
I've lost everything but the vague shape of those high school memories, though I have this muddled impression of you asking advice from me once. And I never understood why. It was inexplicable to me then why I should be your chosen wellspring of sagacity, but I figured for someone to look to me for help, their situation must really be dire.
I don't remember what that situation was anymore, or how it turned out. It must've been fine. What I do remember is how I felt after. For this bright-eyed kid with apparently not a lick of sense in him to put his confidence in me, to humble me with that kind of blind faith, then maybe I deserve it. Maybe I am more. Maybe what he saw in me is real, and I don't have to be a fracture of my doubt and fears. I can be what he saw me as. I can be better.
It's strange, what ends up resonating with us. Some whispers are heard as shouts.
You made me feel that. And we barely knew each other. Imagine what you did for your friends. But I know this about you -- that you saw the best in people. More than that, you took its actuality for granted. You bought into it wholeheartedly, and by believing you made it real. You made everyone around you better, simply by trusting that they could be. You certainly did for me.
We lost touch soon after, in the way that people do. A scattering of chance encounters over the years would oblige friendly if cordial exchanges, pleasantries passed freely around. I saw you one more time, briefly, that last night. Still the same quiet smile, the irrepressible warmth. You'd asked me for advice once, but it was me that somehow got the bargain.
I never understood it. The how of you. The why of what you saw in me, of what you helped put there. I wish you were still here, so you could keep giving what you gave me. I wish I could've given you more in return. I wish I knew you better.
I wish I knew you better.
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