If I'm honest with myself, I don't miss him. 

Isn't that a terrible thing to think? How can you lose someone you love so much, but not miss them?

Standing here now, the leaves drifting down, Autumn colours falling, dancing, swirling... I think about it.

Why doesn't my heart ache? Why aren't I crying? If life was fair, my whole body would be racked with gut wrenching, throat tearing sobs. But it's not. (That's me just being dramatic. If life was really fair, he wouldn't be gone in the first place.)

Subconscious is a funny thing. Sometimes you know all the pieces to a story, and without even thinking about it, your subconscious slots them together of it's own accord, and suddenly everything makes sense. That's what happened to me as I stood there looking down at the little grave. I thought about why I didn't miss him, and the answer same swimming out of my mind, coming to a rest before my eyes, clear as day.

It was because he never really left me.

Now, I don't mean in a paranormal way. Physically, he's gone for good. Spiritually too, I'm pretty sure. But for the life of me I couldn't put down the way I felt to any other means: he hadn't really left. There weren't any glaring signs- no messages, no ghostly moans, no paranormal activity. It was just that sometimes, I knew he was with me.

God, that sounds cheesy.

Okay, I was never certain. I didn't know anything, not for sure. But sometimes I'd get a feeling. Just a feeling, that's all- but it was so strong that I knew I couldn't be imagining things. A feeling that he was watching me, listening to me, smiling at me in that way he used to do.

And then I started to hear him. Actually hear him, hear his voice, in my ear, a whisper. Occasionally.

Maybe I'm mad. Maybe I'm grief ridden and it turns out I am imagining things. In fact I thought I might be going insane. For a few weeks, about a month ago. I chalked everything that had been happening up to insanity; grief induced insanity. I guess it was easier. Easier to admit defeat that to not be able to explain what I'd felt.

But I don't think so. Not any more. I just... feel too sane. And I think it's the one year passing since he died that made me realise, properly, that I'm still sane, because the things he whispers to me could just as well be my own subconscious. He's dead- I know that. He's dead and he's not coming back. But his words (and they are his,), they bring me such comfort, and they help me.

It's little things.

Like, for example, last week, I was picking out some flowers to put on Mum's grave (she's in the same graveyard as him) with my sister, and I heard him.

"No, the blue ones are too wintery. It's still Autumn," I'd said.

"I think if we added a gold ribbon to the blue ones they'd look Autumnal enough."

"Have you got gold ribbon?"

"We could get some," my sister scowled at me. "Don't you want the grave to be pretty?"

"Of course I do!" I snapped.

"Why don't you get both, and combine them into one bouquet?"

I jumped. (I hadn't heart his voice in a while.) But I quickly recovered, and said, "why don't we get both, and combine them into one bouquet?"

"Fine. But you're paying," my sister said, which from her is about as much enthusiasm as I could have hoped for.

A week before that, I'd been cooking a curry. I wondered out loud to my empty kitchen;

"Chick peas or kidney beans?"

And a small voice answered me.

"Kidney beans."

(The right decision.)

It wasn't always answers to questions, though. Sometimes when I'm getting ready and looking in the mirror I hear him.

"Don't forget to brush your teeth."

"Those boots tie the outfit together."

"Your hair is so cute today."

This sounds weird... but I think... maybe... when he died, a little part of him went... inside... me.