Plain white sneakers.

That's one of the things I will always remember about him.

There was nothing flashy about his appearance; ever. Always casual; a pair of shorts, a plain coloured t-shirt (occasionally striped), and always... those plain white sneakers.

We shared a lot in a short space of time. Our conversations would dwell on the dramatic, the emotionally intense, the spiritually elusive; the subjects most often given a wide berth by our peers.

Our conversations developed, quite organically, often from something rather simple, quite innocuous, but always... the conversation would swing. I guess he had a way of redirecting the narrative and I never failed to follow him down the rabbit hole.

Tyrone had a predilection for everything that lay beneath the veneer, ordinarily hidden from the human soul, and he intrigued me. To say that I loved him dearly, was an understatement. The connection that we had was rare... we could speak about anything and everything. No stone left unturned, no subject matter taboo. But we could also simply exist in silence in each other's company.

Knowing that somebody out there gets you, completely; that your relationship grows most within the still cracks of time when words themself are not needed; this is something special.

And so, I would have followed him anywhere... and I did... regularly, although, my breakthrough with him came when he allowed his heart, on that very first day, to follow me.

It was a simple ascent to the top of the tree and a short swing onto the tin roof of the goat shed, from where one could purvey the beauty and expanse of the valley below, but I had dared to challenge his perceptions of gender, and had taken the lead. His ego slightly bruised, his manhood challenged, he had followed swiftly behind me. I had offered up my hand as he reached the top. He had refused it with a shake of the head, and with his face a rising crimson tide, he had turned away from me. I didn't dwell. I walked away and sat quietly at the edge of the roof, contemplating the beauty before me. He joined me a few minutes later, and we sat side by side in comfortable silence. That was the turning point, that was our beginning.

We spent many more days over the next year, sitting side by side on the roof of that goat shed. He was obsessed with life, or rather, the absence of it. What was our purpose as human beings? What could we possibly aspire to if we didn't know how long we each had to live? How would it end for us? Would it be painful? And how would it feel when death came knocking? These are just some of the profound questions that occupied his mind and plagued his soul. Around me, his heart was always on his sleeve, his every insecurity, a badge on display. We shared everything. Our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams.

He posed the difficult questions. I didn't have all the answers. But he made me hunger after them too. So, whilst others were navigating and exploring life, I chose to explore death, with him.

He had a compulsion for discussing each hypothesis through to its natural end in an attempt to work through what it meant for each of us. We concluded after many a long hour, interrogating the data, and discussing the merits and demerits, that whatever was going to happen when our eyes closed for the last time in this world, we would surely continue as beings of light, released from the shackles of our physical bodies, on an eternal journey guided by Grace. I think our conclusions brought him a sense of peace.

A year later those conversations would do much the same for me.

---

I still remember the eerie silence that hung over the old farmhouse that day. A house that used to light up with joy, footsteps that would outpace each other as they skidded around corners, the sound of children's laughter tinkling down the hallway, out the backdoor, and hanging on the wind that swept through the fields and down over the valley below. I remember how it felt to be alive. How it felt to be with him.

Time off for the memorial service had been denied. And so I had accepted an offer to have afternoon tea with his Mom instead.

Whilst she was refilling the kettle, I had taken a comfort break and then lingered a while, in the grandness of their large open-plan hallway, drawn by the myriad of framed images adorning the walls. I don't know how long I stood there, staring, his face drifting in and out of focus. The lone tear that had first pricked, and then tickled the contours of my face, splashed gently onto my lips, a salty reminder of my pain. It brought me back to the moment. I wiped my eyes with the back of my sleeve, and there he was, smiling back at me, through the frosted pane, forever frozen in time within the confines of the brass frame. The image of that same boy whom I loved with all my heart: the messy mop of blond hair, the cheeky grin, the warm grey-blue eyes; he was a beautiful flame caught dancing momentarily in the fabric of time; a light that had drawn me in. His photograph - a haunting reminder of the joy we had once shared.

He had been my best friend. I had always known how I felt about him and had sensed the feeling was mutual, but it had never been voiced.

Before we met, he had had no inclination to spend time with members of the opposite sex. Girls were too demanding of his attention, required too much compromise and self-sacrifice. He had never found any touchpoints worth pursuing. Apparently, I was the first girl who had come along and given him reason to lower his guard. He loved my independence, my spirit of adventure, my love for the outdoors, and the fact that I indulged his obsession with the afterlife. From our first encounter, we were always at ease with each other, content to allow each other the space to lead, or the time to follow.

As I left that day, exchanging a warm hug with his Mom on the doorstep of the old farmhouse, I noticed the plain white sneakers on the shoe rack. His plain white sneakers. They had been retrieved from the scene of the crash by a bystander and returned apologetically to his parents. The emergency services had to cut him free from the vehicle that day - the only one in his family wearing a seat belt. The only one to remain trapped inside on impact. Tragic doesn't come close to describing our loss. His sneakers were a size 2, about right for an average 8-year-old. His Mom couldn't bring herself to put them away. Their solitary presence underscored our shared pain but nevertheless remained a strange source of comfort. Despite their small size, I knew that they were big shoes to fill. Nobody could ever replace my Ty but I knew deep within, that I would one day experience that kind of friendship again, maybe just not while I was 8 years old... because a loss like that, takes time to heal.

“All there is to thinking,” he said, “is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories source

And that is how it was with us; two 8-year-old children, thrown into each other's lives, noticing each other, taking the time to connect, and to peel back the layers, both of each other, and of life.

And so, at the end of the day, they were always more than just plain white sneakers. But, wherever he was, Ty no longer had a need for them. He had left indelible footprints on my heart, and now, I prayed that he would continue to leave them in his wake, touching others with his beautiful soul, in whichever Heavenly worlds he discovered on the other side of this experience called life.