So today is the one year anniversary of Jeff's death. Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that I miss him a whole lot, and that I still feel incredibly sad about his death.
I know that a lot of people are going to read this (on the 3rd, the anniversary of the accident, I had more hits to this blog than I've had since I installed the meter to start keeping track of such things), and I had originally tried to gather and organize my thoughts in the attempt to write some super great post. But I just didn't have it in me.
I don't think it matters, though.
I think that the people who really know me know how much Jeff meant to me, and that Jeff knew it, too.
And today isn't about me writing some super great post or telling humorous stories about Jeff. Today is just about Jeff and the fact that we miss him and enjoyed the time that we had with him (if you're looking for humorous Jeff stuff, just check out his blog, which is still up, or just just click through a bunch of my entries from the time I started my blog up until the day of the accident- the comments he always left in the comments sections might give you even more insight, but he's all over my blog).
On a slightly different note, this one year anniversary has been tough, because in some ways it feels like time just keeps rolling on and we're leaving Jeff farther behind. In other ways, it really doesn't matter how much time passes, because Jeff remains a presence in my life (I'm typing this from inside a house that I probably never would have bought without his help and on a blog that he encouraged me to keep up with). Anyway, I miss him a lot.

Right after his death, I kind of subconsciously started out thinking I could just kind of hurry up and force myself to grieve and then get over his death (a philosophy born somewhat out of the fact that I knew that Jeff had an aversion to depressing topics and a ceaseless zest for life), but I was naive. Just getting over the initial shock that he was gone took longer than I thought. And following that there have been different periods of varying degrees of sadness (which I'm still going through). Jeff might not have liked all of the sadness and grief, but I think it's been unavoidable, and that the same passage of time that is making today difficult is also, ultimately, the most crucial ingredient in coming to terms with Jeff's death. Time won't make the fact that he's gone any better, but time helps us just learn to deal with it.

So, that's all I have. I miss you, Jeff. My life has been immeasurably better for having had you in it. I miss you when I'm having fun, because I know that you always loved a good time, and I miss you when things suck because you always tried to find a way to make them better. My sympathy and love goes out to Mandy and Jeff's family and everyone else who has been touched by his death.

Peace.