timeline

At first you count the minutes.  It is the only way to keep moving forward.  Keep breathing in and out.  It has been ten minutes.

The minutes turn into hours and you stare at the clock.  It has been 24 hours.

Hours accumulate against your will and so you start counting in days.  You have to start eating, everyone loves to tell you.  But everything has lost its flavor.  Every color is gone.  It has been six days.

Soon you move on to marking the passage of time in weeks.  You watch as people, who walked with you during the minutes and hours and days, start walking ahead at a faster clip.  It has been four weeks.

Eventually you make the move from weeks to months.  You start to look at the time trailing out behind you and wonder how it is possible that you have survived as long as this.  It has been five months.

Finally time passes in increments of a year.  You look at your future spreading before you and you begin to realize the missing is never going to go away.  It will get better because it already is better.  But you know that the missing will be your constant companion.  It has been one year.

Now.  Still the missing, even with the happy, always the missing.  It has been nearly three years.