For a while,
as long as your furniture was still there,
as long as the rooms still looked the same,
as long as your stuff was still in the closets,
you weren't gone.
I have the key,
and I would go over to your place,
let myself in,
and stand there,
looking around,
at your favorite chair, by the table,
where you kept everything you wanted handy,
where you sat and watched the news,
where you sat and read...
and I could almost see you there,
still....
although I knew you were gone,
you were still there.

Your bookshelves still held all your books,-
volumes of history,
books on the military,
medical references,
English references,
all kinds of subjects...
it was amazing the stuff you liked to read about.
But they're all gone now, too,
just like all your furniture,
all your clothes,
everything that said you were there....
it's all gone, now.

You're not there, anymore.
Walking through the vacant rooms,
seeing the places where things were,
but seeing those places empty now,
hurts, more than just a little.
And, knowing the images in my mind
will one day blur, then fade,
until I can't remember how things were,
until I can't remember the feeling of opening your door,
and seeing you there,
of saying hello to you as you looked up from your book,
as I walked to my regular seat on the other side of your table....
until I will no longer remember how that was...
... knowing that it will be that way, is the beginning of a personal loss.

I feel cheated, Bob.
I feel angry, and sad.

Today I went over to your house;
the walls and ceilings are all painted over,
the woodwork is all redone,
the carpets are all gone,
the floors are all redone...
they even redid the stairs and the bedrooms
and the hallways and the lights
and the kitchen and the bathrooms
and the cellar - that cellar is so cold and foreign now.

I stood in the place where you used to sit,
because your chair, your table, everything,
is gone now... nothing remains at all.
And I tried, I swear I really tried,
but I could no longer feel your presence.
They have done that good a job
of erasing anything that made the house yours;
they erased every last bit of you
that would make me see you or feel you.

They even covered over
the old crumbling steps and porch
with a big wooden set of steps and porch.
I miss those old crumbling steps, Bob,
and I miss that old crumbling man,
and your old house, now,
is just an old house

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