Remembering a friend: Rob Lloyd

Rob Lloyd.

Tomorrow will be one whole year since you’ve been gone.

And i remember.

Theologically i don’t know that i believe that you’re up there somewhere looking down on me.

But in every other way i feel like i often live as if that is true.

When i think of you looking down on me…

i am a better person

i am more hesitant to do dodgy things [because Rob is watching and i don’t want him to think worse of me]

i am kinder [because you wouldn’t like it if i was that way to that person so i’ll think it but i’ll keep it in check]

i am slower to get caught up in time-wasting activities.

i also talk to you sometimes as if you really are nearby looking down…

You were my go to Jesus guy and so when i am struggling with God and faith and living it out i ask you the questions and wait and listen and try to hear and imagine the kinds of responses i think you would give.

i have tried to imagine where and how you would be in terms of all this university stuff cos on one hand i think we might have landed at quite different places, but on the other hand being present and listening to stories and trying to see peace in spaces where there is no peace sounds exactly like you. i can see you might have totally been someone who donned the white bib and set off as a Peace Justice Witness to the most volatile spots.

i was so very scared of the possibility of forgetting about you…

i heard a story of a man who lost his wife who spoke of that to me, how the memories start to fade and you almost have to force yourself to remember.

But i can honestly say that hasn’t been the case with you.

You are on my mind pretty much every single day. Some more than others and some more intensely than others, but always there.

And not in a morbid way. Although very much in a “I miss Rob” way which for me has been the over-riding emotion the whole way through:

i miss my friend.

Having your picture as the background on my phone has maybe helped.

Having the memorial pic of you grinning at me from my desk in my man cave as well as your Ba Zn Ga shirt [that Nix was amazing to let me have] keeping watch over me [in the metaphorical sense – shirts can’t really keep watch!] also helped.

But mostly it was the gap. The spaces where you weren’t. The ‘Rob will know what to say/do/distract me with coffee and chocolate’ times. The ‘i miss my friend’ness’.

Those have been the hardest times.

“Rob should be here”

“I miss my friend”

Those are probably the two lines that have passed through my head – and sometimes been spoken out loud – the most this past year.

Tomorrow i will watch the Mumford and Sons video song you made for my 40th birthday party with Dunc and MJ, i will go for a drive and maybe a walk and find a spot to just be and know and remember and reminisce, i will more than likely look through the 50 plus pics of you on my computer, i will have lunch with one of my other best mates and speak about some good times, and i will more than likely finish the day with tbV and some good food and cheap wine and maybe even a cigar just as a means of stopping and remembering how important you were in my life, are in my life, and will continue to be.

Maybe i will even jump on to social media and specifically find a place to be like Paul as you once described me – “Passionate yet tactless” – just for memory sake…

Your legacy lives on Rob Lloyd. i love you and miss you and tomorrow my world will stop for a day so i can hang out with the memory of you.