Still Trying 🧃

I'm up during the witching hour, scrolling on my phone, i came across a picture of my cousin who passed 6 years ago as of this past may. He was only 17 when he died, and it happened very tragically and unexpectedly. I looked at the very few photos i have of us together and am missing him so much. I haven't told many people this, but when he passed i started burning a white candle for him 24hrs a day for one full year. When i left the house for work and such i would set the lit candle in the bathtub to prevent a fire. I would sleep at night with the candle burning on my glass-top bedside table. I never let it go out except one or possibly two times for a few seconds when i had an issue with the wick. For the first 3 or 4 years, on his birthday and the anniversary of his death as well as the occasional holiday, i would still call his old number to hear his voice on the recording and leave him a voicemail telling him i missed him and catching him up on big events in my life. His phone was eventually disconnected, so i stopped calling. I just wanted to post something in his memory, because he truly was an amazing kid, a diamond in the rough whose inner light and big personality charmed everyone he met. We were inseparable whenever we lived in the same states and had so many big future plans. I was supposed to take him to his first 18+ night club when he turned 18, so long as he didn't tell his dad. I was supposed to take him to buy spray paint when he turned 18 just because he could. Fun, right-of-passage stuff. We used to play video games and have sleepovers and go to restaurants and movies and text and call all of the time just to talk about life. I'm never going to delete the last text that i sent him the day he passed away. I will always buy a single rose on the day he passed even if i can't make it far away to the site of the accident every year. Every year i light him a white candle. Every year i try to make it to in-n-out, where he passionately worked and LOVED to eat. He would have been 23 now. I wonder what sorts of amazing things he would have achieved already if his life hadn't been cut so short. And every day i will remember him, because so many things remind me of memories of him. I wish everyone in this world had gotten to meet him. He was such a contagiously great kid. Miss you so much, Ryan. I don't usually believe in an afterlife, but for you, i hope that there is one. If such a thing is possible, i hope i get to see you again someday, in another life. Goodnight twitter.