To My Sakura, With Hope.

I saw a film today, it told the story of a dying girl who met a lonely guy, in her final days.

And it reminded me of you.

It reminded me of me, before you.

It reminded me of how I started each day, 

Defeated, my head hung heavy as I brooded through the hours of each day.

Until that day...

The day a rainstorm flooded my campus and had me rushing to my car,

With my soaking shoes under a bright rainbow umbrella.

The day a rushing stranger shared the space under my umbrella,

As we walked awkwardly across puddles of rain and mud. 

And throughout that week of our shared journey,

You took my hand in yours and taught me how to live.

The girl in the film echoes something you once told me:

" Every day is worth the same, no matter how you choose to spend it.

So spend yours exactly how you want to."

You said that to me as you held my hand, seated on that dingy sofa with me, in that freezing library.

I heard your silvery voice with drowning eyes as you spoke to me those words...

Words that I would live by long after that day.

You lit a spark, 

A spark that never dwindled throughout all the other nights since that night,

No matter the darkness that surrounded and often consumed me,

Your spark kept me alive until this day.

Until this day, I look into the abyss, and often overwhelmed by it,

I look back in my mind, through my memories, at you.

And I see you there, just as I remember you,

Just as how I memorized every detail of you on the last night we shared together.

Your words come back to me, and somehow hope comes alive.

Oh... If only you knew...

I could go on and on, you know...

But words fail me because a part of me knows that this won't reach you.

There's also a part of me that reminds me that that's okay.

And to keep writing in hopes that somehow this will find you.

That part of me, the hopeful one, 

That part of me is you, now and always.

We were two strangers whose paths briefly intersected,

Who each gifted to the other a piece of themselves,

Before fate saw our paths divided...

Until this day, every day, I care for you still, and I will.

I will always love you, how I do.

My Sakura...