Letters #2: To the thing that never was

You would’ve been 28.

I try to picture it sometimes.

What you’d look like now. How your voice would sound. Whether you’d still laugh the same way.

It’s strange, how someone can feel so real in memory, but so impossible in the future.

I catch myself doing this thing where I build a life for you in my head.

Maybe you would’ve been married by now. Maybe you’d have kids.

I think about that more than I expect to.

There’s this version of my life where I’m 25 and someone calls me uncle. Where there’s a kid running around who looks a little like you. Where your name gets said in present tense.

It feels so close sometimes, like it almost exists.

And then it doesn’t.

I even think about the small things.

You used to teach me about women, in a way where everything you said felt like truth.

What to say. What not to say. What things meant that I didn’t understand yet.

I wonder what you’d say now.

What you’d think of the person I’ve become. The choices I make. The way I move with my life.

I feel like I missed out on years of guidance I didn’t even realize I’d need.

That’s the part no one really talks about.

Grief isn’t just missing what was.

It’s mourning everything that never got the chance to happen.

All the birthdays that never came. All the conversations we never had. All the versions of you that never got to exist.

It’s like there’s this parallel timeline running next to mine.

In that life, you’re still here. Things turned out differently. We’re older, but together.

And I wonder who I would’ve been in that version too.

Would I be lighter? Less guarded? Less afraid of getting attached to people?

Would I still carry this quiet weight everywhere I go?

I’ll never know.

And that’s the hardest part, not just losing you,

but losing the life that came with you.

The future that never happened.

I think that’s why it still feels unfinished.

Like something that was supposed to keep going just… stopped.

And the world kept moving anyway.

I still build those versions sometimes.

Not because I don’t accept reality,

but because it’s the only place where I get to see you grow up.

Even if it’s just in my head.

Even if it disappears the moment I stop thinking about it.

You would’ve been 28.

And I would’ve been an uncle at 25.

To the thing that never was.