Today I opened a box of your cassette tapes. I found one with SONGS written in your chicken scratch. On the spine you wrote “My Life’s Songs” and inside a list of songs. Most of your tapes are dated but not this one. The Guns N Roses songs are the newest ones on the list and that was 1993, long before I knew you. You would have been 25. You must have been suffering some kind of heartbreak, and you were struggling with the demons young guys like you have in life. It’s clear that even two decades later most of these songs would still burn for you and for me. But it turned out 1993 was not to be the end of your time and your life’s songs would expand. In 1993 you could not know that you would only live just a couple more decades. You would have a lot more music to come, and you would learn to be happy. You lived a lot of life in a short time, and we were lucky to have some of that time together. I just wish it could have been always with you. You died on this day three years ago. Every day I miss your smell, your voice, your kindness, your love and your lips on mine. But I am surrounded every day with these memories and that will keep me content for a long time to come. We’ll never say goodbye.
Jeff Jackson 8/5/1968 to 4/24/16 #57bmf4ever
