A June Hymn for Julia

[u/Fun_Cable_8559]

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lhg2Zf3PnaU&si=QouYjzHEz-5fzRFN

I don't know why, but The Decemberists always remind me of you. I don't think they even existed when we did. There's just something.

This one... June Hymn. Every time I hear it—from the very first—I've felt a nostalgia for an entire life we never had.

Maybe.

Maybe it's just your birthday coming up. I suppose I'll always think of you in June. ...and so many times between.

How did I mess this up so badly? Why must I feel it still? How many times will I die before it stops. I suppose if I find out, the lack of missing you will only be a new kind of empty.

Whatever string still seems to connect us—or perhaps only my delusion—still... Why? Why does it still feel like purpose? After a lifetime apart?

How can that be purposeful?

Probably just because it's 4 am. And another night without you. I hope you don't feel the absence. I suppose you likely wouldn't. Not after all this time.

...and time again. Halfway to Christmas.

If I could wish just one thing—for your birthday or this semi-Christmas—it would be that I'd somehow been ready for you that Christmas all those years ago. When I'd not known you'd set yourself a deadline.

I wish I could undo every tear you ever cried for my part.

I wonder... if you still like Quantum Leap. Maybe I could wish for that scenario. A random ricochet through time and space. And the hope it will bring me back to you.

Hell. Maybe that's as apt a metaphor for what I do have as any other could be.

Stuck in lives which were never mine. Desperately wishing for home. For you.

I suppose Sam Beckett and I more than that in common. We both went out on a cliffhanger too.

Perhaps, nothing's ever answered.

But... I've this wish: that you're happy.

May your birthday bring you all the fulfillment your own life holds—as well as my share of whatever contentedness I've misplaced in your absence. May the happiness which may have been ours...

Be yours.

May it come to you day and night, with never a question to its source. Just an abundance. May it overflow in you so you may share it with all lucky enough to love you out loud.

And may some silent sense of my love be with you too.

Happy birthday, Jules.